PRIMITIVE    BELIEF 


OUTLINES 


OF 


PEIMITIVE    BELIEF 


AMONG  THE  INDO-EUROPEAN  RACES 


BY 


CHAELES  FEANC1S  £EAEY,  M.A.,  F.S.A. 


OF  THK  BRITISH   MUSEUM 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S     SONS 
1882 


till 


TO 

A.    M.     K. 

AND 

K.    II.    K. 


PEE  FACE. 


THERE  are  two  roads  along  which  students  are  now 
travelling  towards  (we  may  reasonably  hope)  the  saim» 
goal  of  fuller  knowledge  touching  Prehistoric  Belief. 
One  way  is  that  of  Comparative  Mythology,  which 
has  become  so  favourite  a  pursuit  with  the  present 
generation.  In  this  method  the  myth  is  taken  for  the 
centre-point  of  the  enquiry,  and — just  as  a  specimen 
in  natural  history  may  be — it  is  traced  through  all 
the  varieties  and  sub-species  that  are  to  be  discovered 
in  various  lands.  The  other  method,  which  is  an 
historical  rather  than  a  scientific  one,  may  be -called 
the  study  of  the  History  of  Belief.  In  it  our  eyes  are 
for  the  time  being  fixed  upon  a  single  race  of  men ; 
and  it  is  the  relationship  of  these  people  to  the 
world  by  which  they  are  surrounded  that  we  seek 
to  know.  The  following  outlines  of  early  Aryan 
belief  belong  to  the  class  of  studies,  which  are  dis- 
tinctly historical  in  character.  They  are  not  designed 
to  establish  any  new  theory  of  the  origin  of  belief 
among  mankind ;  nor  are  they  meant  to  deal  with 
theories  which  relate  to  creeds  other  than  the  Indo- 
European.  They  are  essentially  a  record  of  facts ; 


Vlll  PEEFACE. 

for  the  facts  of  early  Aryan  belief  are  of  a  kind  as 
surely  ascertainable  as  the  laws  of  marriage  or  of 
primitive  society  among  the  Aryan  races.  That  the 
pictures  which  are  here  held  up  are  blurred  and  im- 
perfect I  am  well  aware.  But  some  indulgence  may 
be  claimed  for  what  are,  owing  to  the  necessities  of 
the  case  and  to  the  incompleteness  of  our  present 
knowledge,  mosaics  and  not  paintings. 

The  active  discussion  which  has  of  late  arisen 
over  some  of  the  secondary  questions  of  Indo-Euro- 
pean mythology  has  tended  to  obscure  our  actual 
attainments  in  this  field  of  enquiry.  This  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  the  case  with  the  general  reader, 
who  cannot  be  expected  to  keep  the  science  constantly 
in  view  nor  to  register  its  slow  advance.  By  such  a 
reader  a  whole  system  of  mythological  interpretation 
is  supposed  to  stand  or  fall  upon  the  question 
whether  certain  stories  can  be  proved  to  have  sprung 
out  of- '  sun  myths,'  or  certain  other  tales  to  have 
been  called  into  existence  through  an  '  abuse  of 
language.'  But  still  more  has  this  discussion  tended 
to  throw  into  the  background  the  historical  method 
of  enquiry  into  the  early  history  of  belief,  and  to 
hide  altogether  the  results  which  it  has  reached. 
To  this  field  of  research  some  matters  of  high  im- 
portance in  comparative  mythology  are  only  of 
secondary  consequence,  and  therefore  some  difficulties 
which  have  stood  in  the  way  of  the  one  study  do  not 
impede  the  other.  One  of  the  subjects,  for  instance, 
which  has  been  most  eagerly  debated  among  mytho- 


PREFACE.  ix 

legists  is  the  question  as  to  what  are  and  where  we 
are  to  look  for  the  originals,  the  actual  first  forms 
of  those  tales  which  go  to  make  up  any  system  of 
mythology ;  and  it  is  upon  the  answer  which  should 
be  given  to  that  question  that  schools  are  at  present 
most  divided.  The  difficulty  does  not  press  with  the 
same  insistence  upon  him  who  seeks  merely  to  get  a 
clear  notion  of  belief  in  some  of  its  particular  phases. 
He  can  find  out  who  are  the  beings  that  people  the 
myth  system  upon  which  he  is.  engaged,  and  what 
are  the  stories  related  of  them,  without  troubling 
himself  to  discover  whether  the  same  stories  were 
once  told  concerning  beings  of  another  order.  It  is 
with  the  members  of  the  Aryan  pantheon  as  it  is 
with  such  half-mythic  beings  as  the  Charles  of  the 
Carlovingian  or  the  Arthur  of  the  Arthurian  ro- 
mance. The  tales  told  of  the  two  may  have  won- 
derful points  of  resemblance,  but  we  can  distinguish 
between  the  legend  of  the  Frankish  emperor  and 
the  legend  of  the  British  king.  Or,  again,  that  which 
is  recounted  of  Charles  and  Arthur  may  with  varia- 
tions have  been  told  of  Eed  Indian  heroes  or  of  Zulu 
gods ;  but  this  does  not  affect  the  fact  that  for  the 
particular  times  and  places  under  consideration  the 
stories  attach  to  Charles  and  his  paladins  or  to 
Arthur  and  his  knights.  We  are  not  compelled  to 
trace  the  myths  to  their  remotest  origin  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  the  two  legends. 

There  can,  in  truth,  be  little  doubt  that  in  some 
crude  form  most  of  the  myths  of  the  Indo-European 
system  existed  among  human  beings  at  a  date  much 


X  PKEFACE. 

earlier  than  the  era  in  which  we  first  distinguish  the 
Aryan  races.  I  hardly  suppose  that  the  most  ardent 
hunter  after  histories  which  tell  of  the  loves  of  the 
Sun  and  the  Dawn  would  maintain  that  it  was  from 
the  observation  of  the  Sun  and  of  the  Dawn  that 
mankind  first  gained  its  idea  of  two  lovers.  The 
tales  come  to  attach  themselves  to  those  mythic 
beings  whom  at  any  particular  stage  of  culture  the 
people  have  most  in  their  thoughts.  What  was  once 
related  of  a  tree  or  of  an  animal  may  come  to  be 
told  of  the  sun  and  of  the  earth.  Wherefore  it  is 
only  after  a  complete  study  of  the  belief  in  question 
that  we  can  form  a  judgment  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
existences  to  which  such  tales  are  likely  to  relate. 
When  we  have  settled  this  point  we  can  compare  the 
myths  of  systems  which  belong  to  the  same  stage  of 
thought,  with  a  reasonable  assurance  that  like  stories 
will  attach  to  like  individualities. 

Now  concerning  the  creed  of  the  primitive  Aryas  : 
Comparative  Mythology  has  made  it  possible  for  us 
to  reconstruct  this  in  outline  for  a  time  which  pre- 
cedes the  historical  age.  The  process  whereby  we 
arrive  at  our  knowledge  in  this  case  is  precisely  the 
process  whereby  we  gain  almost  all  the  knowledge 
which  we  possess  concerning  the  prehistoric  life  of 
the  Aryas,  their  laws  of  marriage,  their  social  con- 
ditions, their  advance  in  arts  or  in  agriculture. 
As  to  the  principal  result  of  this  enquiry  all,  or 
almost  all,  who  have  entered  upon  it  are  agreed.  It 
has  been  established  that  this  primitive  Aryan  creed 
rested  upon  a  worship  of  external  phenomena,  such 


PKEFACE.  xi 

as  the  sky,  the  earth,  the  sea,  the  storm,  the  wind, 
the  sun — that  is  to  say,  of  phenomena  which  were 
appreciable  by  the  senses,  but  were  at  the  same  time 
in  a  large  proportion  either  abstractions  or  gene- 
ralisations. It  is  this  form  of  creed  which  I  have 
throughout  the  present  volume  distinguished  as 
_Nature  Worship,  and  of  necessity  it  is  the  one  with 
which  we  shall  be  almost  exclusively  concerned. 

Therefore,  seeing  that  concerning  the  character 
of  this  early  Aryan  belief  all  those  are  agreed  who 
have  made  a  critical  study  of  the  Indo-European 
mythologies,  it  is  obvious  that  it  stands  in  quite  a 
different  category  from  the  disputed  questions  of 
comparative  mythology.  To  me  individually,  after  a 
study  of  certain  among  the  Indo-European  systems, 
the  presence  of  this  nature  worship  at  the  root  of 
them  seems  incontrovertible.  But,  what  is  of  infi- 
nitely more  importance,  I  find  that  the  specialists  in 
every  field — Vedic,  Persian,  Greek,  Eoman,  Teutonic, 
Celtic — have  believed  themselves  to  discover  this 
nature  worship  at  the  back  of  the  historic  creeds 
they  knew  so  well ;  and  I  cannot  persuade  myself 
that  all  their  judgments  are  mistaken,  or  that  there 
should  be  such  a  coincidence  of  error  coming  from 
so  many  different  sides. 

For,  whether  we  ask  Yedic  scholars,  as  Ben  fey, 
Max  Miiller,  Kuhn,  Eoth,  Breal,  Grassmann,  Guber- 
natis,  Bergaigne,  students  of  Greek  mythology,  as 
Welcker,  Preller,  Maury,  of  German,  as  Grimm, 
Simrock,  we  find  that  those  who  are  first  in  each  of 
the  several  branches  of  research,  or  those  who  have 


xil  PEEFACE. 

studied  them  all,  are  alike  agreed  upon  this  parti- 
cular question.  However  in  minor  matters  they  may 
differ,  upon  this  matter  their  judgment  is  uniform. 
This  at  least  must  be  res  judicata,  a  question  no 
longer  admitting  of  dispute. 

The  sources  of  our  information  touching  the  pre- 
historic beliefs  of  the  Indo-Europeans  are  sufficiently 
well  known  not  to  need  a  recapitulation  here.  The 
most  important  which  I  have  made  use 'of  in  this 
volume  may  be  roughly  divided  into  four  classes. 
(1)  The  Vedas,  and  chiefly  the  Big  Veda ;  (2)  the 
Greek  literature  of  mythology,  especially  the  pre- 
historic poets,  Homer  and  Hesiod ;  (3)  the  Icelandic 
Eddas  and  Sagas ;  (4 )  mediaeval  legends  and  epics, 
together  with  modern  popular  tales  and  traditions, 
almost  all  of  which  preserve  some  relics  of  ancient 
heathenism.  In  the  case  of  the  Yedas  I  have  been 
obliged  to  avail  myself  of  translations.  Of  the  7?ig 
Yeda  there  now  exist  two  almost  complete  transla- 
tions into  German,  those  of  H.  Grassmann  and 
Ludwig.  The  beautiful  metrical  rendering  of  H. 
Grassmann  is  the  one  to  which  I  have  been  most 
indebted. 

C.  F.  K 

LONDON,  1882. 


\3RAf?  y^X, 
rHB 

NIVERSITY 


CONTENTS. 


PAOR 

PREFACE  vii 


CHAPTER  I. 

NATURE   OP   BELIEF   AS   HERE    DEALT    WITH. 

§  1.   Limits  of  the  Enquiry. 

Primitive  Beliefs  can  be  studied  in  a  strictly  historical  fashion — The 
aid  which  Philology  brings  to  this  enquiry,  both  in  supplying 
facts  and  in  supplying  principles  of  research — Impossibility  of 
finding  agreement  as  to  the  definition  of  Religion — Necessity  I'm- 
a  Definition  of  Belief — Material  character  of  primitive  ideas 
demonstrated  from  the  history  of  language — The  transition  from 
concrete  to  abstract  terms — Relationship  lift  ween  material  and 
metaphysical  or  ethical  notions  which  is  shown  by  this  change 
— This  relationship  also  explains  the  nature  of  belief — \Yhich 
implies  a  sense  of  moral  or  metaphysical  ideas  underlying  the 
physical  ones — Definition  of  belief  as  the  capacity  for  worship — 
Belief  and  poetic  creation — Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  definition  of 
religion,  how  far  applicable  to  belief  as  here  considered — Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold's  definition  of  religion — Distinction  between 
religion  and  mythology 

§  2.  Early  Phases  of  Belief. 

The  phases  of  thought  shown  in  the  growth  of  language  are  likewise 
traceable  in  the  growth  of  belief — Various  senses  in  which  the 
words  '  fetich  '  and  '  fetichisin  '  have  been  used — Fetichistn  under- 
stood as  a  form  of  magric  does  not  describe  a  definite  phase  of 
belief— For  it  may  coexist  with  many  different  phases — Fetichisni 
understood  as  a  worship  of  individual  and  concrete  inanimate 


XIV  UOWTKNT8. 

PAOB 

objects  does  constitute  a  definite  phase  of  "belief — The  next  dis- 
tin,  J  phase  is  Nature  Worship,  which  is  the  worship  of  external 
phenomena,  as  the  sky,  the  earth,  the  sea,  the  storm,  &c. — The 
decisive  evidences  of  nature  worship  which  are  furnished  by 
comparative  philology — Method  of  comparative  philology  in  gain- 
ing- a  knowledge  of  prehistoric  times — Instanced  in  the  words  yd 
(cow),  diihitar  (daughter) — Dyaus  the  sky  god  of  the  proto-Aryas 
— Nature  worship  the  cause  of  henotheism,  and  an  explanation 
of  polytheism — Change  to  a  personal  god — Zeus  and  tkeos — Our 
enquiries  stop  short  before  the  full  development  of  the  personal 
god — Influence  of  the  passions  and  of  strong  emotion  on  belief  .  29 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    EARLY    GROWTH    OP    BELIEF. 

Abundant  traces  of  a  primitive  fetichism  in  the  Aryan  creeds — The 
three  chief  fetiches  were  trees,  rivers,  and  mountains  —  The 
house  tree — Odysseus'  chamber — The  roof  tree  of  the  Norsemen 
— From  the  house  tree  to  the  world  tree — Yggdrasill — Tanema- 
huta  of  the  Maoris — Sacredness  of  birds — Prophetic  power  of 
birds — Wise  women  who  change  themselves  into  birds — Winged 
animals,  how  they  arose — Prophetic  power  which  remains  with  the 
fetich  after  it  has  ceased  to  be  a  god — With  trees — With  moun- 
tains and  with  rivers — The  tree  ancestor — Greek  and  Persian 
houses  descended  from  trees — Ask  and  Embla  (Ash  and  Elm) 
the  universal  parents  in  the  Edda — Mediaeval  legend  touching  \> 
the  Tree  of  Life— From  the  tree  ancestor  comes  the  tree  of  the-"* 
tribe  or  the  village  tree,  so  well  known  to  the  German  races — The 
patrician  and  plebeian  trees  in  Home— Passage  of  the  soul  into 
a  tree — Philemon  and  Baucis,  Myrrha,  &c. — Mountain  gods — 
River  gods — Oceanus  compared  to  Yggdrasill— Fetichism  gave 
the  first  impulse  to  a  love  of  country — Animal  worship — Serpent 
worship — Its  connection  with  worship  of  rivers — Symbolical  ser- 
pents—  Jormungandr — The  Python — Worship  of  stocks  and 
stones  a  relic  of  fetichism — Worship  of  unshapen  agalmata  in 
Greece — Sculptured  trees — Influence  of  fetich  worship  on  the 
beginnings  of  art — Survivals  of_fetichism — Vitality  of  the  belief 
in  magic — Transition  from  feticli  worship  to  nature  worship — 
The  intermediate  stage — The  dryads,  nvmphs,  fauns,  apsaras, 
centaurs,  &c. — Music  born  of  streams — The  contest  between  the 
newer  and  the  older  gods  , 63 


CONTENTS.  XV 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE   AEYAS. 

PAGE 

Agni's  birth — He  devours  his  parents — Significance  of  this  incident 
as  showing  the  religious  condition  ot'  the  Vedic  worshipper — 
The  idealisation  to  which  Agni  attains — Other  nature  gods  are 
more  dependent  upon  climatic  influences — It  is  necessary,  there- 
fore, to  enquire  to  what  climatic  influences  the  ancestors  of  the 
Indo-European  races  were  exposed — The  cradle  of  the  Aryan 
race  in  Bactria — Nature  of  that  land — Contrasted  with  Egypt  and 
Chaldea — The  village  community — Diversities  of  creed — Migra- 
tions of  the  Aryas — Fetich  gods  had  to  he  left  behind— The 
Vedas — Religious  rather  than  mythological — The  pre- Vedic 
creed  of  Eastern  Aryas — Dyaus,  Prithivi — Active  and  passive 
gods — Rivalry  between  Dyaus  and  Indra,  and  between  Varuna 
and  Indra — Hymn  to  Indra  and  Varuna — The  god  of  the  lower  - — 
heaven  and  the  god  of  the  upper  heaven — Indra  as  a  supreme  •— 
god — His  might — His  combats — Ahi,  Vritra,  and  iSambara — 
Relationship  of  Agni  to  Indra — Traces  of  tire  worship  in  other 
Indo-European  creeds — Agni  as  a  hero^Prometheus — How  the 
nature  gods  lose  their  distinct  individualities — Mitra  and  Varuna 
— Originally  personified  the  day  and  night  skies — Then  tin-. 
meeting  of  day  and  night,  the  horizons  at  morning  and  evening 
Hymn  to  Varuna  and  Mitra — Hymn  to  Mitra  alone — The  Aavin 
— The  mythic  day :  the  white  dawn,  the  red  dawn  (Ushas) — 
Hymn  to  Ushas — The  sun  (Surya) — Hymn  to  Surya — The  storm 
winds  (the  Marute) — Hymn  to  the  Maruts — Meeting  of  Indra 
and  the  Maruts — The  midday  battle — Sunset — Hymn  to  Savitar 
as  the  setting  sun 08 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ZEUS,    APOLLO,    ATHENE. 

Complexity  of  Greek  belief — Necessity  of  comparing  it  with  the 
Vedic  and  Teutonic  creeds — Lack  of  individuality  of  Greek  gods 
in  the  historic  age — Zeus,  Apollo,  and  Athene  stand  out  from 
among  the  rest — Relics  of  nature  origin  shown  in  their  charac- 
ters— The  Zeus  of  Pheidias — The  migration  of  the  European 
nationalities — The  Yavanas — The  lonians — The  two  routes  taken 
by  those  who  came  to  form  the  Greek  nationality — The  lonians 
crossed  the  ^Egaean — The  Pelasgians  went  round  by  the  Helles- 

a 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

pont — The  oldest  Greek  divinities — Zeus  as  the  storm — The 
Pelasgic  Zeus — Combat  with  a  still  older  fetich  worship — The 
gods  and  the  Titans — The  wives  of  Zeus— Nearly  all  originally 
earth  goddesses— Hera  distinct  from  the  others — Poseidon  and 
Hades-Pluton  divinities  of  the  older  pantheon — So  also  Ares 
and  Heracles,  who  were  sun  gods. 

Worship  of  Apollo  and  Athene  softened  the  natures  of  the 
other  Greek  gods  — The  Dorians — Spread  of  their  influence — The 
birth  of  Apollo — Apollo  at  Delphi — His  fight  with  the  Python — 
His  wanderings — His  relationship  to  Heracles — Death  of  the 
sun  god — Of  Heracles — Of  Apollo,  implied  in  one  myth — The 
harrowing  of  hell — Apollo  and  Zeus. 

Goddesses  born  of  water — Aphrodite,  Athene  Tritogeneia 
— Earth  and  cloud  goddesses — Athene's  virgin  nature  as  Pallas, 
Parthenos — Shows  her  essential  identity  with  Artemis — Athene's 
second  birth — Hymn  to  Athene — Athene  Polias — Polybulos — 
Polymetis — Athene  and  the  Gorgon — Athene  in  the  Iliad — In  the 
Odyssey — Apollo  and  Athene  the  mediators — Zeus  the  highest 
Greek  ideal  of  God 155 


CHAPTER  V. 

MYSTERIES. 

Position  of  the  earth  divinities  in  every  creed — These  are  always 
honoured  by  rustic  dances  and  processions — Antiquity  of  Greek 
mysteries — Universality  of  mysteries — Their  original  intention 
was  to  celebrate  the  return  of  spring — The  myth  of  Derneter  and 
Persephone,  from  the  Homeric  hymn — Mysteries  must  have 
existed  before  the  use  of  agriculture — Changes  which  that  use 
introduced  into  them — Triptolemus — Peasant  festivals — The 
Lupercalia — Emotional  element  in  mysteries — The  orgy — The 
use  of  music  in  the  Eleusinia — Comparison  with  a  mystic  drama 
prepared  by  St.  Francis — Original  meaning  of  the  wanderings  of 
Demeter — Image  of  the  earth-goddess  dragged  from  place  to 
place — The  ceremonial  of  the  Eleusinia  —  Older  and  newer  ele- 
ments in  it — A  processional  chaunt — The  resurrection  of  the 
seed  —  Mysteries  became  associated  with  thouq-hts  about  the 
other  world — The  decay  of  the  Homeric  religion — Growth  of 
the  hope  of  immortality — Aristophanes'  picture  of  the  under- 
world—  Growing  moral  sense  —  Neoplatonism — Worship  of 
Serapis  and  Isis  in  Greece — In  Rome — Romans  adopted  mysteries 
of  Serapis  and  Isis — Plutarch's  version  of  the  story  of  Osiris  and 
IsLs — His  explanation  of  it — Last  stage  of  the  mysteries  .  .  214 


CONTENTS.  xvii 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    OTHER   WORLD. 

§  1.  The  Under  World,  the  River  of  Death,  and  the  Bridge  of  Souls. 

PAGE 

Alternations  of  belief  and  unbelief  touching  the  other  world 
traceable  at  all  times — In  the  Middle  Airrs  us  in  Greece — 
Interpretations  from  nature  have  not  diilered  greatly  from  age 
to  age — The  soul  as  the  breath — The  '  unseen  place' — The 
nether  kingdom — The  funeral  feast — Remains  of,  in  Stone  Age 
grave  mounds — Reappearance  of  the  ghost  through  the  mouth  of 
the  grave — Personification  of  grave  as  animal  (e.g.  Cerl>erus, 
Feurir)  or  as  human  being  (e.g.  Hades,  Hel)  .Journey  of  the 
soul  to  the  West — The  Egyptian  notions  concerning  this  journey 
— The  Aryas  by  the  Caspian — The  Caspian  became  their  Sea  of 
Death, or,  earlier  still,  River  of  Death — Oceanus  succeeded  to  the 
same  place — Separation  between  myths  of  River  of  Death  and  of 
Sea  01  Death — The  former  became  more  characteristic  of  Kastern 
Aryas,  the  latter  of  Western — Journeys  to  seek  the  Kurthly 
Paradise — Svegder  l-'ioluersson — The  Indian  streams  Vijaranadi 
and  Vaiterawi — Introduction  of  the  custom  of  burning  the  dead 
— The  soul  and  the  smoke  of  the  pyre— The  heavenly  llridge  of 
Souls — The  Milky  Way  in  Vedic  mythology — The'  Surameyaa 
the  guardians  of  the  bridge — The  A'iuvad — Sirat — Asbru  or 
Bifrost— The  Winter  Street 261 


§  2.  The  Sea  of  Death. 

Among  the  Indo-Europeans  the  Greeks  first  became  familiar  with 
the  sea  —  So  among  them  sprang  up  the  great  epic  of  the  Sea  of 
Death,  the  Odyssey  —  Contrast  between  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey 
in  respect  of  the  worlds  with  which  they  deal  —  Though  Homer 
does  not  consciously  relate  fables,  the  old  imagery  of  the  Sea,  of 
Death  had  become  associated  with  the  Mediterranean,  and  is  thus 
reproduced  in  the  Odyssey  —  Odysseus'  voyage  —  Sleep  Home  (the 
Lotophagi)  —  Giant  Land  (the  Cyclopes)  —  Wind  Home  ' 


island)  —  The  Lse&trygoninns  —  Circe  a  Goddess  of  Death—  Can 
only  waft  Odysseus  to  Hades  —  Odysseus  in  the  kingdom  of  Hades 
—  Calypso  another  Goddess  of  Death  —  She  sends  Odysseus  to 
Paradise,  i.e.  the  Land  of  the  Phteacians  —  The  palace  and  garden 
of  Alcinoiia  —  Odysseus'  return  .......  295 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE  VII. 

THE    BELIEFS    OF    HEATHEN    GERMANY. 
§  1.  The  Gods  of  the  Mark. 

PAGE 

General  uniformity  of  German  heathenism  wherever  found  —  The 
climatic  influences  under  which  it  was  matured  —  The  German 
village  community  —  Life  beneath  trees  —  Worship  in  the  forest  —  • 
The  mark  —  Description  of  a  holy  grove  at  Upsala  in  the  eleventh 
century  —  Celtic  worship  beneath  trees  —  The  gods  of  the  mark, 
Odhinn  (Wuotan),  Thorr  (Donar),  and  Tyr  (Zio)—  Odhinn  the 
wind  —  Tyr  (Dyaus)  superseded  by  Odhinn  —  Odhinn  as  the 
All-father  —  As  the  god  of  wisdom  —  The  Counsellor  (Gagnrad) 
and  the  Terrible  (Yggr)  —  As  the  storm  wind  —  The  god  of 
battles  —  Odhinn  and  the  Valkyriur  —  Nature  origin  of  the  Valky- 
riur  —  Description  of,  from  the  lay  of  Volund  —  Brynhild  or 
Sigrdrifa  —  Her  first  meeting  with  Sigurd  —  German  gods  less 
immortal  than  those  of  Greece  and  Rome  —  Preparations  against 
the  Gods'  Doom  (Ragnarok)  —  The  Urdar  fount  —  Picture  of  the 
Norseman's  world:  Asgard  —  Yggdrasill  —  Heimdal  —  The  Mid- 
gard  Sea  —  The  Iron  "Wood  —  Jotunheimar  —  Thorr's  journeys  to 
Jotunheim  —  His  visit  to  the  hall  of  tltgar'oloki  —  To  Hymir  —  To 
Thrymr  —  We  have  better  means  of  testing  the  Teutonic  belief 
about  the  giant  race  than  any  that  are  afforded  us  in  the  Eddas  ; 
namely,  in  the  poem  of  Beowulf  —  Hrothgars  palace  —  De- 
scription of  Grendel  —  Beowulf's  fight  with  him,  and  with  the 
mother  of  Grendel  .........  325 


§  2.  The  Gods  of  the  Homestead. 

There  was  also  a  peaceful  side  to  German  belief  —  Represented  by 
Balder  and  Freyr  among  gods,  and  by  the  goddesses  Nerthus, 
Frigg,  Freyja  —  Freyr  and  GerS,  the  story  of  the  anodos  — 
Freyja  and  Odhur,  the  story  of  the  kat/iodos  —  The  image  of 
Nerthus  dragged  from  place  to  place  —  Elements  of  a  mystery 
in  this  ceremonial  —  Traces  of  its  survival  in  the  Middle  Ages  — 
Rustic  rites  which  have  descended  from  heathen  times  —  Easter 
fires  —  May  fires  —  The  maypole  —  Description  of  May-day  fes- 
tivities in  Stubbs'  *  Anatomie  of  Abuses  '  —  Witches  and  the 
Walpuryisnacht  —  Dragging  the  plough  on  Shrove  Tuesday  or 
Plough  Monday—  The  twelve  Days—  The  Three  Kings—  Super- 
stitions connected  with  Yuletide  ......  368 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE   SHADOW   OF   DEATH. 

PAQR 

§  1.  Visits  to  the  Under  World.     The  Death  of  Balder. 

Fatalism  of  the  Teutonic  creed — Frequent  images  of  death  in  its 
mythology — Loki  the  personification  of  the  funeral  tire — His 
double  nature  —  His  giant  wife,  Angrboo'a —  His  children, 
Fenrir,  Jb'rmungandr,  and  Hel,  who  are  three  personifications  of 
death  —  Jotunheimar — The  out-world  fire — Fire  surrounding 
the  House  of  Death — The  ghost  of  Ilfl<ri  Hundingsbane — 
Skirnir  in  Jb'tunheim — Fiolsvith  and  Svipdag— (Xlhinn's  Hrl-rido 
— The  Vala  at  the  gate  of  the  under  world — I'tguro'loki — Thorr's 
visit  to  him  in  reality  a  descent  to  Ilflhrim — Mc:miii;jr  of  the 
three  contests — The  death  of  Balder — Ills  fum-nil  Ilrri'ioor's 
ride  to  Heiheim — Hope  of  Balder's  returning  from  the  Land  of 
Shades— Nors«>  funeral  rites  imitated  those  of  Balder — Ibn  Ilau- 
kal's  description  of  the  fuiu-rul  ritrs  of  th.-  linns— The  St.  John's 
fires  in  the  twelfth  century — At  the  present  day,  in  Germany 
— In  Brittany — In  England — Reflection  of  the  mythology  of  the 
under  world  in  epics  and  popular  tales — Brynhild  on  the  Ilin- 
darljoll— Sigurd's  leap  over  the  flame— The  Sleeping  Beauty  .  384 

§  2.  Ragnarok. 

Formation  of  the  world — Ginnungagap,  Hvergelmir,  Muspell's-heim 
— The  end  of  the  world — The  Firnbul-winter  of  three  years' 
duration — The  three  cocks  who  proclaim  the  dawning  of  llag- 
narb'k — The  giant  ships  which  steer  across  the  M  id<rard  Sea — 
Surt  (Swart)  rides  over  Asbru  to  join  the  giants — The  opposing 
powers  meet  on  Vigrid's  plain — The  three  great  combats — 
Burning  of  the  world,  which  afterwards  sinks  in  the  sea — The 
rise  of  a  new  world,  over  which  Balder  is  to  rule — Muspilli — 
Heiheim  survived  in  the  mediaeval  purgatory — Visions  of  purga- 
tory—By St.  Fursey— By  Drihthelm— By  Charles  the  Fat— St. 
Patrick's  purgatory — Vision  of  Tundale 419 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    EAETHLY   PAEADISE. 

Effect  of  Christianity  in  changing  men's  belief  concerning  the  other 
world  —  The  Earthly  Paradise,  however,  continued  to  exist 
rather  in  spite  of  than  through  its  influence — Prejudice  in  favour 


XX  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

of  a  Paradise  in  the  West — The  Western  Sea  still  the  Sea  of 
Death — England  the  home  of  souls — Procopius'  story  concerning 
Brittia  —  Claudian  alludes  to  the  same  myth — The  ghost  of 
Grhnvald — The  ferry  of  Carnoet — Ireland  the  home  of  souls — 
The  Island  of  Saints — St.  Brandan's  Isle — Dante's  account  of 
Ulysses'  last  voyage — Dante  hears  witness  to  the  "belief  in  an 
Earthly  Paradise  in  the  West — Voyage  of  Gorm  the  Wise  to 
farther  Biarmia — Voyage  of  St.  Brandan — The  Island  of  Sheep 
— The  Paradise  of  Birds — Aval  on— Arthur's  voyage  thither — 
Ogier  the  Eane  in  Avalon — He  revisits  earth  and  again  returns 
to  Paradise— The  Paradise  Knight— Sceaf— Lohengriu  ,  .  433 


CHAPTER   X. 

HEATHENISM   IN   THE    MIDDLE    AGES. 

The  heathenism  of  Northern  Europe  cannot  be  studied  in  heathen 
literature  or  heathen  times  alone — It  is  therefore  desirable  to 
give  a  glance  at  some  of  its  lingering  effects  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
though  this  can  be  no  more  than  a  glance. — The  Middle  Ages 
ages  of  mythology  rather  than  of  history — The  age  of  the  Teutonic 
conquests  in  Roman  territory  was  that  which  gave  birth  to  the 
great  German  epic,  the  Nibelungen — The  germ  of  the  story  to  be 
traced  in  the  second  part  of  Beowulf,  in  the  Vb'lsung  Saga,  and 
in  the  Nibelungen-Lied — This  germ  is  the  slaying  of  a  dragon 
(worm),  and  thereby  winning  a  hoard  of  gold — -Afterwards  over- 
laid with  the  story  of  the  loves  and  jealousies  of  Brynhild 
(Brunhild)  and  Godrun  (Kriemhild) — In  the  histories  of  Sigurd 
and  Siegfried  are  combined  the  characteristic  elements  in  the 
histories  of  Thorr  and  Balder — The  low  morality  of  the  Nibelun- 
gen  due  to  the  special  era  in  which  it  had  its  birth — The  fatal 
enchantment  of  wealth  which  fell  upon  the  victorious  Germans — 
Rustic  mythologies  which  probably  existed  contemporaneously 
with  this  great  epic — The  vitality  of  folk  lore — Heroic  myth  of 
Arthur — The  Legends  of  the  Saints — Relics  of  popular  mytho- 
logy in  them — The  Beast  Epic— '  Reineke  Fuchs' — The  inaugu- 
ration of  the  Middle  Ages  by  the  crowning  of  Charles  the  Great  as 
Emperor— The  establishment  of  German  influence  upon  mediaeval 
thought  was  symbolised  by  the  same  event — The  '  Chansons  de 
Geste  ' — Points  of  likeness  between  Charlemagne  and  Odhinn — 
Reappearance  of  the  Valkyriur — Berchta — Roland  compared  to 
Thorr — To  Siegfried — To  Heimdal — His  horn — Ragnarok  and 
Roucesvalles — The  last  home  of  German  heathenism  now  the 


CONTENTS.  23li 

PA  OB 

home  of  German  popular  tales — The  Wild  Huntsman — The 
Stretmann — The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin — Van  der  Dekkeii — The 
real  meaning  of  the  punishment  in  every  case — The  Wandering 
Jew — The  world  of  the  Middle  Ages — Growth  of  castles — 
Change  in  the  character  of  convents — Feudalism  and  Catholi- 
cism— Feudalism  had  some  of  its  roots  in  the  ancient  German 
village  community — Catholicism  likewise  had  some  of  its  roots  in 
the  same  distant  past — But  in  both  feudalism  and  Catholicism  a 
living  organism  was  turned  to  stone — The  Gothic  cathedral  and--\* 
the  holy  grove — Witchcraft — Transformation  of  Odhinn  into 
Satan  and  of  the  Valkyriur  into  witches — The  wood  maidens  in 
Saxo's  story  of  Balder  us  and  Hotherus — Witchcraft  was  a  dis- 
tinct cult,  originally  probably  of  the  ancient  divinities — It  also 
included  a  certain  social  organisation,  and  thus  was  opposed 
both  to  Catholicism  and  to  feudalism — Dawn  of  the  Renaissance 
era — Effect  of  the  crusades — Want  of  coined  money — Mercenary 
soldiers — Rise  of  the  burghers — The  fablitnu' — Mendicant  orders 
— Dante  the  last  voice  of  mediaeval  Catholicism  .  .  .  4G1 


INDEX  .  521 


/ 


^'fV^V 

.-H*  ^ 

UNIVERSITY 


OUTLINES  OF   PRIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

CHAPTER    I. 

NATURE  OF  BELIEF  AS  HEKE  DEALT  WITH. 

§  1.  Limits  of  the  Enquiry. 

THE  world  around  us  is  what  we  believe  it  is,  and  nothing 
more;  wherefore  the  history  of  belief,  so  long  as  the 
belief  be  genuine,  is  real  history,  and  can  be  studied  by 
merely  historical  methods.  This  kind  of  enquiry  can  be 
made  independent  of  any  theory  of  the  origin  or  nature 
of  belief,  just  as  much  as  history,  a  record  of  events,  may 
be  made  independent  of  the  science  of  history.  Of  late 
years,  however,  this  historical  way  of  regarding  belief  has 
been  almost  lost  sight  of,  and  mythology,  since  it  became 
comparative,  has  concerned  itself  almost  exclusively  with 
a  scientific  enquiry  into  the  genesis  of  myths.  It  has,  as 
must  be  confessed  by  those  who  have  followed  its  re- 
searches, been,  at  the  expense  of  some  extravagances  here 
and  there,  fruitful  in  great  results.  It  has  so  changed 
our  whole  outlook  over  the  field  of  religion  and  of  legend- 
ary beliefs,  that  we  have  hardly  yet  been  able  to  recog- 
nise the  change.  Perhaps  with  some  of  us  it  has  been 
that  we  have  been  so  affected  by  the  new  spirit  that 
we  can  scarcely,  even  by  an  effort  of  imagination,  realise 
a  tone  of  thought  upon  these  matters  such  as  was  uni- 
versally current  but  a  few  years  ago ;  albeit  that  tone  of 
thought  and  method  of  interpretation  still  breathe  in  our 


2  OUTLINES   OF  PKIMIT1VE  BELIEF. 

classical  dictionaries,  and  in  those  other  6  standard  au- 
thors '  who  are  considered  good  enough  to  instruct  the 
mind  of  youth.  Now  that  the  researches  of  comparative 
mythologists  have  so  far  cleared  the  ground,  we  are  in  a 
position  to  retrace  our  steps  a  little ;  to  return  once  more 
to  the  historical  method,  only  in  a  far  different  spirit  and 
with  a  far,  clearer  outlook ;  to  take  up  again  in  a  wider 
field  the  kind  of  enquiry  which  once  busied  itself  with 
single  religious  systems  and  never  looked  beyond  them. 

There  was  once  a  time  when  the  legendary  beliefs  of 
nations  were  in  histories  related  side  by  side  with  the 
actual  experiences  of  those  peoples,  as  if  both  were  of  equal 
reality  and  had  an  interest  of  the  same  kind.  A  little 
later  on  historians  tried  to  place  all  the  mythologies  in  a 
crucible  of  criticism,  and  hoped  to  extract  from  them 
some  golden  grains  of  actual  fact.  Now  we  know  that 
both  these  methods  are  wrong.  We  have  learned  that 
myths  have  quite  a  different  canon  of  interpretation  from 
the  events  of  history ;  that  they  tell  of  a  quite  different 
order  of  facts ;  that  the  one  cannot  be  rendered  in  terms 
of  the  other.  But  we  know  also,  or  if  we  do  not,  it  is 
time  that  we  should  recognise  the  truth,  that  myths,  or 
better  still  that  'beliefs.,  have  a  history  of  their  own  quite 
as  important  as  any  history  of  events.  To  interpret  belief 
under  this  aspect  is  the  object  of  the  following  pages. 
And  though  this  labour  differs  essentially  from  labours  in 
comparative  mythology,  still  it  is  a  task  to  which  com- 
parative mythology  must  ever  be  a  lamp  and  guide. 

I  would  not  have  these  chapters  considered  simply 
as  essays  in  the  science  of  comparative  mythology.  They 
are  not  essentially  enquiries  how  and  why  beliefs  have 
come  to  be  what  they  are,  but  what  they  have  come  to  be. 
It  is  only  because  the  ground  has  been  broken  by  scientific 
study  that  we  are  able  to  glean  from  it  historic  facts ;  yet 
still  the  method  and  aims  of  the  historian  are  altogether 
different  from  those  of  the  scientist.  The  qualifications  for 
the  pursuits  of  the  one  do  not  promise  success  to  the  other. 


USE  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


But  the  History  of  Belief,  in  its  early  mythologic 
stage,  is  a  new  study,  and  is,  therefore,  without  those 
canons  of  criticism  which  past  generations  of  students 
have  bequeathed  to  the  modern  historian  in  other  fields. 
For  this  reason,  and  because  in  dealing  with  ages  so 
primitive  we  are  at  once  brought  face  to  face  with  psycho- 
logical problems  applicable  to  the  whole  human  race,  it  is 
needful  for  me  to  preface  the  other  chapters  of  this  book 
with  one  of  a  scientific  kind,  in  order,  if  possible,  to  make 
clear  the  principles  which  have  guided  me  in  the  narrative 
parts  which  follow.  Let  those  who  have  no  relish  for 
psychological  questions  pass  by  this  chapter  if  they  will. 

There  is  one  very  simple  proposition  which  applies  to 
all  fields  of  historical  enquiry,  and  which  surely  in  no 
other  field  than  this  would  have  been  called  in  question. 
It  is  that,  when  we  are  studying  the  beliefs  of  a  people 
whose  language  and  literature  we  know,  it  is  to  this 
language  and  literature  that  we  must  turn  for  the  history 
of  their  thoughts.  My  investigation,  for  example,  being 
narrowed  altogether  within  the  circle  of  the  Indo- 
European  creeds,  I  am  not  compelled  to  defend  the  results 
at  which  I  shall  arrive  against  arguments  and  facts  drawn 
from  other  fields  of  enquiry,  from  other  languages  and 
other  literatures.  I  read  one  theory  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  Egyptian  religion  or  of  Semitic  beliefs ;  quite 
another  theory,  perhaps,  of  the  birth  of  the  creeds  of 
South  Africa  or  of  Australia.  Am  I  convicted  of  error 
if  my  results  do  not  square  with  these  ?  I  do  not  think 
so.  Nor  will  I  say  that  what  I  have  discovered,  or 
believe  myself  to  have  found,  in  the  history  of  Indo- 
European  thought,  is  binding  upon  all  other  investigators. 
The  student  in  any  one  field  no  doubt  thinks  that  he 
has  discovered  the  key  to  all  truth.  One  writer  will 
say  that  our  history  begins  with  too  low  a  conception  of 
man's  faculties ;  another  that  the  conception  is  too  high. 
It  may  be — I  do  not  say  it  is — too  low  for  the  Semitic 
race;  it  may  be  too  high  for  the  Negritic  race.  But 

B   2 


4  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIV7E  BELIEF. 

that  does  not  prove  that,  for  the  Indo-European  races, 
the  estimate  is  unjust.  In  future,  therefore,  when  any- 
thing is  said  of  primitive  man,  let  it  be  understood  that 
the  primitive  man  spoken  of  is  he  who  in  time  developes 
into  an  Aryan.  He  is  the  first  among  the  proto-Aryans. 
He  is  no  chance  primeval  being,  but  has,  let  us  say,  the 
potentiality  of  Aryan  culture  about  him. 

In  the  case  of  this  special  people,  when  we  desire  to 
pry  into  their  primitive  thoughts,  we  are  not  compelled  to 
proceed  by  guess  work  or  vague  analogies,  but  can  call  up 
two  voices  to  speak  to  us  of  their  past.  The  first  voice  is 
what  we  may  call  their  literature,  widening  the  use  of 
that  word  somewhat  to  include  religious  or  mythological 
poems,  Vedic  hymns,  Greek  epics,  Icelandic  lays,  which, 
ages  before  they  became  in  strict  sense  a  literature,  had 
been  handed  down  by  oral  tradition  from  bard  to  bard. 
These  poems  are  the  conscious  expression  of  men's  thoughts 
in  prehistoric  days.  The  other  voice,  not  less  mighty  for 
the  revelation  of  truth,  may  be  called  the  unconscious 
expression  of  the  same  men's  thoughts ;  a  kind  of  thinking 
aloud.  This  comes  from  the  history  of  their  language, 
whose  slow  development  has  of  recent  years  been  laid 
bare  by  the  researches  of  Comparative  Philology.  This  is 
our  best  and  truest  guide ;  it  is  the  lamp  unto  the  feet 
and  the  light  unto  the  path  of  all  future  explorers  in  the 
tangled  ways  of  psychology.  It  is  an  undesigned  testi- 
mony which  cannot  lie ;  without  it  the  study  of  mythology 
is  like  surgery  divorced  from  anatomy,  or  astronomy  bereft 
of  mathematics.  It  shows  us  not  only  facts  which  would 
otherwise  be  hidden,  but,  by  its  own  great  achievements, 
it  points  out  to  us  the  method  of  enquiry  which  can  alone 
yield  results. 

According  to  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  religion  may  be 
defined  as  an  '  a  priori  theory  of  the  universe ; '  and  there 
is,  the  writer  tells  us,  a  subsidiary  and  unessential  element 
in  religion,  namely,  the  moral  teaching,  '  which  is  in  all 
cases  a  supplementary  growth.'  '  Leaving  out,'  he  says, 


A  DEFINITION  OF  BELIEF  NEEDFUL.  5 

'the  accompanying  moral  code,  which  is  in  all  cases  a  sup- 
plementary growth,  religion  may  be  defined  as  an  a  priori 
theory  of  the  universe.' l  But  it  is  clear  that  this  definition 
would  not  be  universally  accepted,  for  we  find  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  saying  in  his  '  Literature  and  Dogma,' 2  that 
(  Religion,  if  we  follow  the  intention  of  human  thought 
and  human  language  in  the  use  of  the  word,  is  ethics, 
heightened,  enkindled,  lit  up  by  feeling ;  the  passage  from 
morality  to  religion  is  made  when  to  morality  is  applied 
emotion ;  and  the  true  meaning  of  religion  is  not  simply 
morality,  but  morality  touched  by  emotion.'  Mr.  Max 
Miiller  has  defined  Eeligion  more  simply,  as  the  smsus 
numinis,  the  sense  of  our  dependence  upon  some  thing 
(or  some  one)  else.  'All  nations  join,  in  some  way  or 
other,  in  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  "  He  that  hath  made 
us  and  not  we  ourselves." ' 3  In  face  of  these  divergences 
among  the  doctors  and  leaders  of  thought,  we  may  reason- 
ably suppose  that  it  would  be  scarcely  possible  to  get  any 
two  men  to  agree  in  the  meaning  which  they  attached  to 
the  word  religion.  And  though  our  .study  is  not  so  much  a 
study  of  religion  as  of  belief,  which  is  a  something  at 
once  wider  than  religion  and  more  definite,  still,  even  in 
the  case  of  belief,  I  cannot  anticipate  with  certainty  that 
I  shall  carry  the  reader  along  with  me  in  the  meaning 
which  I  give  to  that  word.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
the  case  of  a  word  of  so  vague,  though  so  common  a  use, 
all  that  can  be  fairly  demanded  is  that  I  should  make 
clear  the  sense  in  which  I  employ  it.  It  is,  indeed,  mainly 
to  this  object  that  the  present  chapter  is  devoted— to  the 
getting  some  clear  notion  as  to  what  we  are  to  recognise 
as  the  essential  and  primitive  beliefs  of  men,  and  then,  as 
a  necessary  consequence,  to  the  presentation  of  some  of 
the  forms  which  belief  has  taken  in  the  course  of  man's 
early  development. 

We  are  no  longer  obliged  to  call  in  a  '  Darwinian 

1  Mrgt  Principles,  3rd  ed.  pp.  43,  44.  2  Pp.  20,  21. 

Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language,  second  series,  p.  436. 


6  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

theory,5  nor  the  aid  of  any  external  physical  demonstration, 
to  prove  all  that  it  is  really  important  to  know  touching 
the  evolution  of  human  nature.  It  matters  not  in  this 
respect  whether  for  our  first  parent  we  are  to  reckon  with 
an  ape  or  a  man  the  '  goodliest  of  men  since  born  his 
sons ; '  for,  whatever  the  state  of  outward  perfection  which 
our  first  parent  displayed,  we  are  sure  of  this  at  least, 
that  that  perfection  could  not  have  extended  to  the  mind. 
The  real  significance  of  our  origin  lies  in  the  origin  of 
our  thoughts,  in  their  beginning  and  their  earliest  changes, 
and  these  it  is  easy  to  show  must  have  been  of  the 
rudest. 

Philologists  may  continue  long  to  dispute  over  the 
precise  origin  of  language ;  but  philology  has  brought  us 
so  far  that  there  can  be  now  no  question  that  the  primitive 
speech  of  mankind  was  of  the  rudest  character,  devoid 
almost  utterly  of  abstract  words,  unfit  for  the  use  of  any 
kind  of  men  save  such  as  were  in  the  earliest  stage  of 
thought. 

It  is  probably  true  that  the  mental  and  moral  attain- 
ment of  any  people,  all  that  shows  their  progress  along  the 
path  of  civilisation,  is  (in  mathematical  phrase)  in  a  direct 
ratio  with  the  number  of  their  abstract  words.  If,  there- 
fore, the  history  of  language  points  back  to-a  time  when 
man  had  no  abstractions,  what  could  have  been  his  mental 
condition  then  P  If  we  look  at  our  own  language,  or  at 
any  other  which  we  know,  we  see  its  words  divisible  into 
two  classes — those  which  express  objects  appreciable  by 
the  senses ;  and  those  which  express  ideas  Imving  no 
existence  in  the  physical  world ;  such  words  as  pen,  iiik, 
and  paper  (meaning  this  particular  pen,  ink,  and  paper)  on 
the  one  side,  and  such  words  as  fear,  virtue,  right,  upon 
the  other.  We  perceive  with  very  little  reflection  that 
without  the  possession  of  these  latter  words  the  ideas 
which  they  bespeak  could  not  be  present  to  the  mind ;  and 
with  a  very  little  additional  reflection  we  can  understand 
that  the  number  of  such  abstract  ideas  recorded  by  any 


LANGUAGE  ROOTED  IN  SENSATION.  V 

language  is  a  very  fair  measure  of  the  advancement  of 
those  who  use  it. 

4  Without  abstract  words  man  can  have  no  clear  con- 
ception of  abstract  ideas.  If  all  his  language  speaks  of 
physical  sensation  only,  if  he  hare  no  such  expressions  in 
it,  or  few  such,  as  thought,  virtue,  right,  his  intellectual  and 
moral  nature  must  be  in  the  embryo  only.  Though  he  be 
outwardly  the  goodliest  of  men,  inwardly  he  cannot  be 
much  above  the  brute.  It  will  be  said  by  some,'*  Man  has 
only  degraded  to  such  a  state  since  the  fall;  he  began 
with  endowments  of  the  highest.'  Well,  if  tbat  were  to 
be  conceded,  it  would  not  alter  the  position  in  which  we 
stand  for  setting  out  upon  our  enquiries.  Whatever  the 
primal  Adam  may  have  been,  the  forerunner  of  the  Aryan 
race  must  have  been  in  the  degraded  condition  we  have 
described.  This  language  plainly  tells.  Albeit  philologers 
have  not  yet  insisted  very  strongly  upon  it,  yet  this  con- 
clusion is  forced  upon  us  by  the  facts  of  philology ;  and, 
indeed,  lies  so  patent  there,  that  it  cannot  be  blinked  or 
set  aside.  The  history  of  individual  words  are  indi- 
cations of  it,  for  the  farther  we  trace  such  words  back 
towards  their  primitive  roots,  the  nearer  do  they  come  to 
bearing  meanings  purely  physical  in  place  of  the  meta- 
physical significations  which  at  a  later  time  they  wear. 
As  we  travel  backwards  toward  these  sources  of  language, 
we  see  the  stream  of  thought  becoming  more  and  more 
mixed  and  thickened  with  earthly  matter,  and  the  sounds 
approach  the  nearer  to  the  old  physical  uses.  Language 
never  arrives  at  the  point  of  containing  none  but  words 
of  mere  sensation  ;  but  then  we  can  never  get  back  to 
the  language  of  the  Prime.  It  shows  an  approach  that 
way.  One  by  one  the  roots  seem  to  desert  from  the 
metaphysical  or  abstract  class,  and  range  themselves  in 
the  ranks  of  the  physical  and  concrete  class.  And  of  this 
process  we  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  note  some 
examples. 

A   conviction   of   the    material   nature   of    primitive 


8  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

thought  is  suggested,  or  compelled,  not  by  this  inductive 
reasoning  alone.  We  cannot  fashion  for  ourselves  any 
theory  of  the  origin  of  speech  which  would  not  point  to 
the  same  conclusion — any  reasonable  theory,  that  is, 
which  would  make  speech  a  part  of  the  acquirements 
of  the  human  race.  The  fact  that  man  alone  possesses 
the  gift  of  language  is  often  pointed  to  as  a  reason 
for  supposing  the  method  of  his  acquirement  of  language 
a  thing  so  utterly  miraculous,  as  to  be  without  the  pale 
even  of  speculation.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that 
speech  is  only  the  flower  (as  we  may  call  it)  of  certain 
inward  faculties,  most  of  which  can  still  be  traced  in  the 
course  of  growth.  Man  is  not  less  distinguished  from 
animals  by  his  powers  of  abstract  reasoning  than  by 
speech;  and  it  is  as  reasonable  to  suppose  him  acquiring 
at  once,  and  by  a  miraculous  gift,  the  knowledge  'that 
two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space,'  or  that  'the 
three  internal  angles  of  a  triangle  are  together  equal  to 
two  right  angles,'  as  to  suppose  him  at  once  starting 
with  the  possession  of  a  finished  language.  If  he  did 
not  start  with  his  finished  language,  he  must  have 
acquired  it,  as  he  acquired  his  mathematical  truths,  by 
slow  experience  and  experiment.  Of  what  kind  then 
would  this  experiment  be  ? 

The  use  of  speech  is  for  the  interchange  of  ideas  be- 
tween man  and  man ;  its  very  existence  implies  a  passage 
from  one  mind  to  another,  and  the  difference  between  words 
and  thoughts  may  be  defined  by  saying  that  the  former  are 
so  much  of  thought  as  can  be  carried  from  A  to  B. 
Words  are  not  thoughts,  but  thoughts  converted  into 
sounds,  to  be  afterwards  reconverted  into  thoughts ;  just 
as,  in  a  modern  experiment,  sound  is  converted  into  elec- 
tricity, and  then  resolved  into  sound  again.  Wherefore 
the  real  force  of  a  word  may  be  compared  to  the  force  of 
the  current  in  the  telephone ;  it  is,  not  the  full  thought 
with  which  A  utters  it,  but  the  amount  of  thought  which 
it  can  convey  from  A  to  B.  Let  us  now  suppose  the  case 


WITHOUT  WORDS  NO   CLEAE  IDEAS.  9 

of  a  primitive  A  and  B  first  learning  ihe  use  of  words. 
In  whatever  way  they  may  have  lighted  upon  the  notion 
of  expressing  by  sound  what  was  passing  in  their  minds, 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  first  experiment  owed  its  success 
to  the  fact  that  the  same  idea  happened  to  be  present  in 
two  minds  at  once.  If  A  made  a  sound,  and  this  sound 
happened  to  convey  what  A  was  thinking  or  feeling  to  B, 
the  success  was  due  to  the  fact  that  B  was  thinking  or 
feeling  the  same  thing  at  the  same  moment ;  and  A  in  his 
turn  must  have  had  some  foreknowledge  of  this,  or  he 
could  never  tell  that  his  experiment  had  succeeded,  and 
by  that  knowledge  be  tempted  to  try  it  again.  There  is 
only  one  class  of  ideas  which  can  be  in  the  mind  of  one 
man,  and  be  known  by  another  to  be  present  there — the 
ideas,  namely,  of  physical  sensation.  All  language,  there- 
fore, must  have  taken  its  origin  there.  To  speak  more 
plainly,  such  ideas  as  horse,  tree,  wolf,  run,  flow,  river, 
must  have  been  the  first  to  receive  names  ;  because  A  and 
B  could  run  together,  and  could  see  horses,  trees,  and 
wolves  and  rivers  at  the  same  time.  But  inward  ideas — 
anxiety,  love,  thought — would  receive  their  names  later,  and 
by  a  metaphorical  transfer  of  the  words  from  physical  to 
meta-physical  ideas. 

In  the  case  suggested  of  an  imaginary  A  and  B  trying 
to  be  mutually  intelligible,  it  might  seeni  as  if  the  physical 
meaning  of  the  root  sounds  of  a  language  were  determined 
by  external  necessity — the  necessity  for  an  instantaneous 
common  experience  of  the  idea — not  by  any  defect  in  the 
constitution  of  human  nature  at  this  primitive  time. 
There  is  nothing,  it  may  be  said,  to  prove  that  humanity 
was  incapable  of  conceiving  metaphysical  ideas,  even 
though  it  is  proved  that  it  could  not  at  first  have  ex- 
pressed them.  The  result  is  really  the  same,  however. 
It  belongs  to  our  mental  constitution  that,  without  any 
distinct  names  for  them,  we  can  entertain  no  clear  ideas. 
Without  language  to  give  it  form,  we  can  have  at  the  best 
only  the  rudiments  of  thought.  Whether  the  first  words 


10  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

'were  percepts  or  concepts,  whether  they  were  nouns,  adjec- 
tives, or  verbs,  are  questions  which  may  be  argued  out  of 
their  place,  but  which  do  not  concern  us  here.  Indeed, 
the  nearer  we  look  at  the  matter,  the  more  does  the  dis- 
tinction between  percept  and  concept,  between  noun  and 
adjective,  seem  to  fade  away.  Suppose  a  sound  to  be 
drawn,  as  it  were,  out  of  A  by  some  sudden  physical  sen- 
sation ;  before  it  can  become  current  between  A  and  B  it 
must  be,  in  a  great  degree,  modified  by  thought  and  by 
memory,  or  loss  of  memory.  The  cry  which  A  makes 
when  he  sees  a  red  fox  run  by  may  stand  in  A's  mind 
partly  for  the  actual  sensation  of  the  very,  animal,  its  form 
and  colour  and  all,  partly  for  the  mere  effect  of  its  rapid 
motion ;  and  it  must  (one  would  suppose)  depend  largely 
upon  chance  whether  the  memory  of  the  fox  is  next 
awakened  by  the  next  thing  which  runs  by,  by  the  next 
red  thing  seen,  or  by  the  next  thing  which  in  form  and 
vitality  shows  its  likeness  to  the  fox.  Taking  this  for  an 
example  of  the  first  word  ever  uttered,  it  must,  one  would 
say,  be  to  a  great  extent  an  accident  whether  this  first 
word  comes  in  the  end  to  be  a  substantive,  an  adjective, 
or  a  verb. 

This  suggestion  I  only  throw  out  here,  and  pass  the 
subject  by ;  for,  as  I  have  said,  it  concerns  our  future 
enquiries  but  little.  This  much  it  is  needful  to  remember : 
that  though  the  earlier  words  of  a  language  express  physical 
sensations,  they  express  them  as  they  are  interpreted  by  the 
human  mind.  There  may  be — nay,  we  shall  see  hereafter 
often  is — something  more  in  these  sensations  than  we, 
with  our  powers  of  abstraction  and  of  distinction  between 
different  orders  of  ideas,  should  be  disposed  to  look  for 
there. 

Agreeably,  it  has  been  already  said,  to  this  a  priori 
reasoning  are  the  facts  of  philology,  which  show  us  a 
physical  root  as  the  foundation  of  the  words  which  seem 
most  abstract.  Right,  which  we  took  just  now  as  an  ex- 
ample of  the  metaphysical  class  of  words,  had  once  its 


OEIGIN  OF  ABSTRACT  TEEMS.  11 

place  in  the  physical  body ;  and  without  the  need  of  any 
deep  philological  knowledge  we  can  see  what  its  first 
meaning  was.  We  at  once  connect  the  Latin  rectus  with 
porrectus,  meaning  stretched  out  or  straight.  This  brings 
us  back  to  the  German  recken,  to  stretch.  We  therefore 
get  upon  the  scent  of  right  as  meaning  first  straight,  and 
earlier  still  '  stretched,'  stretched  and  straight  being  really 
the  same  words,  and  the  straight  string  being  the  stretched 
string.  We  have  further — if  further  proof  were  wanted — 
a  Greek  root,  opsy-  opeywcri,  opsysi,  with  the  same  signifi- 
cance of  stretched  or  straight ;  and,  finally,  we  find  that 
all  these  words  are  connected  with  a  Sanskrit  arj,  which 
means  *  to  stretch.'  What  is  stretched,  then,  is  straight, 
and  the  straight  way  is  the  right  way.  Will  (Latin  volo, 
voluntas)  is  a  word  which  seems  remote  enough  from  any 
physical  thing  ;  yet  this,  too,  may  be  shown  to  be  grounded 
in  sensation.  In  the  first  place,  will  is  only  the  more  in- 
stantaneous wish,  and  is  connected  with  the  German 
wdhlen,  to  choose,  and  ultimately  with  the  Sanskrit  var,  to 
choose, '  to  place,  or  draw  out  first.'  With  this  root  we  must 
connect  the  Latin  verus,  veritas,  the  Lithuanian  and  Scla- 
vonic vera, vera, '  belief.'  Verus,  or  veritas,  is,  therefore,  what 
is  credible,  or,  earlier  still,  the  thing  chosen ;  and  the  old 
Latin  proverb,  reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  stands  thus  : 
'  Great  is  the  thing  chosen  ;  it  will  prevail.'  There  is,  it 
may  be  added,  another  Sanskrit  word,  vdra,  and  a  Lithu- 
anian valyti,  meaning  *  heap,'  coming  from  the  same  root 
and  the  same  physical  idea,  to  draw  together  being  the 
same  thing  as  to  draw.  Wherefore  the  origin  of  the  Latin 
veritas,  as  well  as  of  voluntas,  will,  is  merely  the  physical 
process  of  drawing  ;  and  the  change  from  this  original 
sense  to  two  such  opposite  ideas  as  truth  and  heap  can 
easily  be  followed. 

Our  individual  words  thought,  think,  cannot,  I  believe, 
be  followed  back  to  an  origin  in  sensation.  But  are  we, 
on  this  account,  justified  in  doubting  that  they  had  such 
a  beginning?  The  question  will  best  be  answered  by 


12  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

turning  to  other  sounds  which  have  been  used  for  the 
same  idea ;  to  see  whether  they  can  show  an  equally  in- 
dependent existence.  The  Greek  and  Latin  words  which 
have  the  same  significance,  pavQavw,  memini,  mens,  &c., 
can  be  followed  further  backward  than  can  our  thought, 
think,  and  can  be  shown  to  have  meant  at  first  nothing 
more  than  '  measure.' 

Examples  such  as  those  which  we  have  just  chosen 
show  best  the  inmost  workings  of  the  human  mind.  There 
are  others  in  which  the  mode  of  transfer  from  physical  to 
abstract  senses  is  more  obvious  and  superficial.  As  I  shall 
show  presently,  the  examples  of  the  first  class  open  the  way 
to  an  understanding  of  the  genesis  of  belief;  those  of  the 
second  are  more  instructive  in  the  same  way  with  regard 
to  the  growth  of  myths.  For  myths  are  the  flower  and 
the  most  superficial  appearances  of  belief.  As  an  example 
of  the  more  obvious  kind  of  change  from  physical  to 
metaphysical  meanings,  we  may  take  that  expressed  by 
our  use  of  the  phrases  '  cold-hearted '  or  'hard-hearted.' 
With  us  such  a  phrase  is  pure  metaphor,  but  not  so  with 
ancient  writers.  In  reading  Homer,  for  example,  it  is  no 
easy  matter  to  say  when  the  physical  aspect  of  /cfjp  (heart) 
or  of  ^f%^  (breath,  soul)  is  most  present  to  the  mind  of 
the  poet,  and  when  the  metaphysical  or  metaphorical 
aspect.  Examples  of  this  kind  might  be  multiplied 
without  end. 

Will  it  be  said  by  the  candid  reader,  after  considering 
even  these  few  examples,  that  confusion  of  ideas  between 
physical  and  metaphysical  could  possibly  have  arisen  in 
an  exactly  opposite  way  from  that  which  I  have  supposed 
was  the  order  of  their  growth — namely,  by  a  transfer 
through  metaphor  of  the  metaphysical  idea  to  the  physical 
thing :  that,  for  example,  the  idea  of  moral  Tightness 
came  before  the  idea  of  straightness,  and  was  applied  to 
this  latter  by  analogy ;  that  the  idea  of  truth  came  before 
the  idea  of  selecting,  choosing,  or  heaping  together ;  the  idea 
of  thought  preceded  the  idea  of  measuring?  The  two 


ORIGIN  OF  ABSTRACT  TERMS.  13 

orders  of  ideas  could  not  have  both  been  in  the  mind  at 
the  same  time ;  that  is  certain.  Had  they  been  so  present 
we  should  have  had  two  separate  orders  of  words  devoid 
of  etymological  connection.  Therefore  either  the  moral 
idea  was  taken  from  the  physical  one,  or  the  physical 
from  the  moral.  Have  we  any  hesitation  in  deciding 
which  process  actually  took  place  ?  l 

But  somehow  a  deeper  than  a  purely  physical  sense 
has  come  in  time  to  attach  itself  to  all  and  each  of  these 
words.  By  whatever  process — and  the  process  differs 
somewhat  in  each  individual  case — straight  has  come  to 
mean  right,  heap,  truth,  measure,  think,  and  so  forth  ;  the 
ethical  meaning  has  grown  over  the  physical  meaning, 
and  in  many  places  hidden  it  altogether.  And  as  this 
gradual  development  is  not  arbitrary,  nor  one  to  be  illus- 
trated by  a  few  examples  only,  but  a  continuous  change 
parallel  with  the  growth  of  human  speech,  it  must  express 
a  certain  faculty  or  tendency  in  human  thought.  This 
faculty  had  we  learnt  fully  to  understand,  we  should  know 
much.  We  should  have  gained  the  key  to  that  which  is 
most  essential  in  our  nature,  the  capacity  of  abstract 
thought  and  of  moral  sense. 

Having  formed  a  certain  elementary  language  of  root 
sounds,  man  desired  to  communicate  to  his  neighbour 
ideas  to  which  he  found  no  correspondence  in  external 
nature.  How  was  he  to  act  then  ?  He  was  now  brought 
to  the  verge  of  perhaps  the  greatest  step  which  has  ever 


1  I  find  a  writer  upon  mythology  saying  that  'the  adherents  of  the 
theory  of  primitive  fetichism,  primeval  barbarism,  and  the  like,  when 
hard  pressed  by  the  evidence  which  shows  the  simplicity  and  the  purity  of 
the  religious  views  of  archaic  man,  are  wont  to  take  refuge  in  "  boundless 
time,"  where  indeed  they  are  perfectly  safe  from  our  pursuit '...-.  and 
that  '  of  primitive  man  we  know  little,  but  dogmatise  much,'  the  writer 
quoting  as  a  proof  of  such  dogmatism  assertions  by  Ludwig  Noire  and  others 
of  less  repute,  and  ending  '  such  asseitions  jn  the  absence  of  evidence  are 
of  course  valueless '  (The  Religion  and  Mythology  of  the  Aryans  of  Northern 
Jtl'iirojye,  by  R.  Brown,  F.S.A.)  Certainly  all  assertions  are  valueless  in  the 
absence  of  evidence.  But  is  there,  in  the  history  of  the  development  of 
words,  no  evidence  on  the  question  of  the  development  of  human  thought  1 


14  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

been  taken  by  the  human  mind.  To  have  hit  upon  the 
notion  of  making  certain  sounds,  which  should  convey  the 
idea  of  external  things — this  was  much ;  but  much  more 
is  it  if  he  can  contrive  to  convey  the  ideas  which  are 
passing  in  his  own  mind.  Exactly  how  this  was  done  we 
cannot  know;  no  doubt  it  was  a  development  which  pro- 
ceeded by  very  slow  degrees.  Sometimes  the  internal 
idea  might  be  conveyed  as  the  simple  expression  of  some 
outward  object,  just  as  the  name  of  some  dreaded  animal 
might  come  to  be  used  for  fear,  or  else  for  the  same 
feeling  men  might  employ  some  of  its  outward  expres- 
sions, trembling  and  the  like.  But,  as  for  the  expression 
of  most  internal  ideas,  it  seems  pretty  clear  that  there  was 
in  the  mind  of  primitive  man  some  subtle  and  necessary 
connection  between  them  and  external  phenomena.  For 
the  same  reason  which  obliged  the  first  words  to  have 
physical  meanings — the  necessity  for  a  consensus  or  agree- 
ment in  their  use — must  operate  still,  in  determining  the 
transfer  from  physical  to  metaphysical  uses.  It  could  be 
no  fanciful  connection  which  associated  certain  mental 
ideas — virtue,  right — with  physical  roots,  and  but  for  the 
fact  that  there  was  the  connection  in  the  human  mind  no 
words  for  mental  or  moral  conceptions  would  ever  have 
been  invented. 

The  deaf  and  dumb,  when  they  desire  to  express  a 
good  man,  do  so  by  moving  the  hands  forward  in  a 
straight  line ;  the  wicked  man  they  express  by  motion  in  a 
crooked  line.  This  sign  is  recognised  as  one  of  those 
which  are  spontaneous  and  common  to  human  nature.  It 
is  with  them  no  acquired  metaphorical  association  between 
right  and  straight,  but  a  spontaneous  association  of  ideas. 
An  example  such  as  this  seems  for  a  moment  to  lift  the 
veil  from  before  the  history  of  man's  development  in 
thought. 

The  habit  of  confounding  and  involving  the  two  orders 
of  ideas,  the  physical  and  the  moral,  was  general  only  in 
primitive  stages  of  thought,  but  survivals  of  the  same 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  'GREAT'  AND   'HIGH.'  15 

habit  are  found  among  us,  and  even  these  are  hard  to 
explain.  Great  and  high,  low  and  base  are  used,  and  so 
far  back  as  we  can  trace  language  have  been  used,  in  such 
a  double  sense.  One  hardly  sees  how  there  can  be  any 
pleasure  to  the  moral  feelings  gained  from  taking  a  longer 
rather  than  a  shorter  time  in  moving  over  a  given  surface 
or  up  to  a  given  point ;  and  no  more  than  this  is  implied 
in  the  words  great,  high  used  in  their  literal  meaning. 
What  is  there  more  moral  in  motion  upwards  than  in  mo- 
tion downwards?  Yet  it  can  scarcely  be  maintained  that 
it  is  an  accidental  association  of  ideas  which  makes  high 
imply  good,  and  low  evil,  in  face  of  the  peculiar  attribute  of 
man  that  he  alone  among  the  animals  can  look  upward, 
and  that  he  has  always  chosen  an  upward  gaze  for  his 
attitude  of  prayer  and  worship. 

It  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  note  these  one  or  two 
examples  of  a  process  which  goes  on  throughout  the 
whole  range  of  human  development,  a  process  which,  to 
sum  it  in  gross,  is  nothing  less  than  the  recognition  of  a 
something  behind  the  material  world  which  man  learned 
the  first  to  know.  It  is  true  that  with  the  knowledge  of 
good  comes  the  knowledge  of  evil,  and  words  for  good  and 
high  imply  words  for  evil  and  base.  But  still  it  is  through- 
out a  growth  of  the  moral  capacities  of  man.  Between 
the  perfect  conception  of  the  moral  abstraction  and  the 
condition  of  mind  in  which  no  moral  idea  has  yet  been 
thought  of  there  is  a  vast  interval,  which  the  human 
faculty  of  development  has  slowly  over-bridged.  It  is  the 
history  of  the  transition  from  one  state  to  another,  which 
I  would  call  the  Early  History  of  Belief. 

In  the  conception  of  right,  for  example,  we  have,  after 
its  first  meaning  6  stretched,'  the  secondary  and  partly 
moral  one  of  fit  and  suitable.  Few  would  be  inclined  to 
question  the  assertion  that  right  had  once  this  meaning 
and  no  higher  one.  Yet  when  man  has  got  so  far  as  this 
he  has  scarcely  yet  attained  a  complete  moral  sense. 
What  moral  feeling  mingles  with  his  use  of  the  word 


16  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

applies  only  to  particular  occasions.  He  has  no  thought 
of  a  general  law.  Still  he  may  have  moral  ideas.  Though 
he  calls  it  unsuitable  to  injure  his  neighbour  or  to  desert 
nis  tribe,  he  deems  it  so  in  obedience  to  an  instinct  of 
clanship  teaching  him  to  love  his  kind.  Or  again,  to  come 
to  matters  more  directly  relating  to  religion,  though  the 
savage  worships  a  visible  physical  object,  a  tree,  a  river, 
or  a  mountain,  he  may  do  so  in  obedience  to  an  instinct  of 
admiration  for  what  is  great  and  high,  and  in  dim  recogni- 
tion of  moral  greatness  and  height.  We  have  in  Sanskrit 
a  root  ri,  and  in  the  sister  language,  the  Zend,  the  root 
ere,  from  which  we  may  argue  back  to  a  lost  proto- Aryan  l 
word  which  meant  (at  first)  motion,  but  more  especially 
motion  upwards,  such  as  we  understand  from  the  same  root 
when  it  appears  in  the  Latin  orire.  But  that  same  root  ri 
comes  to  mean  in  the  Sanskrit  to  move,  to  excite,  to  raise  ; 
and  finally  it  enters  into  the  word  cm/a,  which  means, 
as  an  adjective,  excellent,  beloved,  and  as  a  substantive 
master,  lord.  As  soon,  then,  as  a  word,  which  originally 
meant  movement  only,  comes  to  be  used  especially  in  the 
sense  of  movement  upwards,  the  moral  meaning  begins  to 
develope  therefrom :  it  absorbs  into  itself  gradually  the 
idea  of  quite  internal  emotions,  excitement,  elevation,  and 
comes  at  last  to  mean  noble,  beloved.  Is  not  such  an 
example  as  this  the  chronicle  and  brief  abstract  of  the 
growth  of  human  thought? 

Now  transfer  this  method  of  thought  from  words  to 
things,  and  we  have  the  first  and  most  important  chapter 
in  the  history  of  Belief.  I  have  said  that  Belief  covers 
the  range  of  things  which  are  believed  to  exist ;  but  it  is 


1  The  word  Aryan  is  commonly  used  as  a  designation  for  the  forgotten 
ancestors  of  us  and  of  the  whole  Indo-European  family.  The  use  is  not 
quite  a  correct  one,  for  Aryan  has  never  to  our  knowledge  been  applied 
save  to  the  Eastern  (Indo- Persic)  division  of  the  race.  We  have  every 
reason  to  believe,  however,  that  our  ancestors  once  called  themselves 
Aryas  or  by  some  word  closely  akin  to  that  one.  Proto-Aryas,  proto-Aryan, 
are  the  most  scientific  terms  we  can  find,  but  it  will  often  be  convenient 
to  use  the  shorter  words  Aryas,  Aryan  in  the  same  sense. 


THE  CAPACITY  FOR  WORSHIP.  17 


something  beside  the  recognition  of  what  exists  in  outward 
sensation.  It  is  the  answering  voice  of  human  conscious- 
ness, or  conscience,  to  the  call  of  this  something  behind. 
The  call  is  from  the  outward  beauty  ;  the  response  is  from 
inward  seeing,  or  the  sense  of  moral  beauty.  Without  the 
inward  development  the  human  mind  would  be  incapable 
of  even  the  outward  pleasure  of  beauty,  and  without  the 
outward  call,  without  the  influence  of  the  charm  or  wonder 
or  the  terror  of  nature,  man  would  never  have  acquired  the 
capacity  for  discerning  a  something  beyond  nature.  It  is 
this  capacity  which  I  call  Belief,  and  the  more  we  con- 
sider it,  the  more  clearly  we  shall  see  that  it  is  essentially 
the  capacity  for  worship.  For  what  I  have  only  called  the 
recognition  of  a  something  behind  the  physical  object  is, 
in  reality,  a  worship  of  the  something  (or  Some  One)  be- 
hind it.  Primitive  man  has  a  belief  in  the  great  thing,  the 
tree,  river,  mountain,  or  what  not.'  This  belief  is  an  affec- 
tion of  the  mind,  very  different  from  the  simple  sense  that 
the  thing  is  physically  broad  and  high.  Along  with  the 
physical  sensation  goes  a  subtler  inward  feeling,  a  sense 
not  easily  measurable  as  physical  sensations  are,  but  still 
discoverable.  We  know  it  to  be  there  by  the  answer 
which  the  material  sensation  has  called  out  of  man's  heart, 
and  which  makes  itself  audibly  known  in  his  worship. 

Perhaps,  therefore,  if  we  were  pressed  for  a  single  and 
concise  definition  of  that  human  faculty  called  belief, 
which  we  have  taken  for  our  study  here,  we  could  hardly 
find  a  better  one  than  this,  that  it  is  the  ( capacity  for 
worship.'  For  if  you  will  consider  the  nature  of  man  you 
will  find  that  with  him  it  always  has  been  and  still  is  true, 
that  that  thing  in  all  his  inward  or  outward  world  which 
he  sees  worthy  of  worship,  is  essentially  the  thing  in  which 
he  believes ;  and  conversely  that  he  who  worships  nothing 
believes  in  nothing.  Wherefore  it  has  been  truly  said  that 
'the  man  who  cannot  wonder,  who  does  not  habitually 
wonder  and  worship,'  though  he  hold  all  the  results  of 
scientific  knowledge  in  his  single  head,  '  is  but  a  Pair  of 

G 


18  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Spectacles  behind  which  there  is  no  Eye.' l  This  definition 
of  Belief  will  be  found  to  serve  us  in  the  investigations 
which  we  have  undertaken.  And  even  if  it  be  objected  to 
by  anyone,  I  may  fairly  fall  back  upon  the  proved  impos- 
sibility of  getting-  all  men  to  agree  upon  a  definition  in 
these  vexed  questions  of  religion  and  belief.  All  that  can 
fairly  be  asked  is,  that  our  studies  should  continue  to  be 
what  they  profess  to  be  at  starting  ;  that  is  to  say,  that  the 
same  definition  of  belief  should  be  adhered  to  throughout. 
The  real  importance  of  history  does  not  lie  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  separate  events,  the  battles,  sieges,  treaties, 
speeches,  which  it  records  ;  for  the  events  themselves  are 
often  commonplace  enough,  and  might  be  matched  with 
little  trouble  elsewhere.  There  have  been  savage  wars 
numberless  among  unhistoric  peoples  as  full  of  incident, 
of  strange  turns  of  fortune — nay,  perhaps  as  full  of  heroism 
and  devotion — as  the  great  wars  of  history.  But  we  pass 
by  the  doings  of  African  savages  or  of  Red  Indians  without 
heed,  because  these  races  are  of  such  a  nature  that  their 
experience  of  life  has  never  reacted  in  any  effective  way 
upon  their  national  character.  Their  haps,  their  tides  of 
fortune,  have  left  them  where  they  found  them,  because  they 
have  not  the  power  of  profiting  by  the  past,  or  of  carrying 
its  teachings  forward  to  form  part  of  a  new  present.  And 
as  it  is  with  the  events  of  history,  so  is  it  with  the  com- 
monest physical  sensations ;  the  importance  these  have  in 
the  history  of  man's  growth  is  not  limited  to  his  actual 
experience  of  them.  So  far,  indeed,  as  that  experience 
goes,  its  past  history  is  no  matter  worth  recording.  We 
do  not  care  to  be  reminded  that  primitive  man,  or  man  in 
any  stage  of  his  upward  development,  felt  that  the  fire  was 
warm,  that  stones  were  hard,  that  water  was  soft  and 
bright.  It  is  the  reflection,  as  it  were,  of  these  experiences 
in  the  mind  of  our  race  which  is  still  living ;  for  out  of 
such  physical  sensations  man  created  a  world  which  was 
not  physical.  And  he  has  passed  on  this  aftergrowth  of 
1  Sartor  Resartus. 


LOVE,  HUMANITY,  AND  BELIEF.  19 

experience  to  be  the  inheritance  of  all  future  ages.  ( No- 
thing of  it  that  doth  fade/  but  it  suffers  a  *  sea  change.' 
And  the  fashion  of  that  change  the  lessons  of  philology 
which  we  have  just  learned  can  partly  tell  us. 

There  is  nothing  mystical  in  such  a  doctrine  as  this  of 
the  origin  of  belief ;  it  does  but  make  belief  at  one  with  the 
whole  upward  progress  of  the  human  mind ;  it  can  be  de- 
monstrated step  by  step  from  the  history  of  language — that 
is  to  say,  by  an  undesigned  testimony  which  cannot  lie. 
As  surely  as  love,  hate,  right,  and  ivrong  have  had  their 
physical  antecedents,  and  as  surely  as  these  sensations 
have  developed  in  time  into  thoughts  and  feelings,  so  surely 
have  the  outward  things,  as  the  mere  rocks  and  trees, 
which  were  in  themselves  objects  of  worship,  grown  in 
time  to  be  abstract  gods,  or  to  be  One  abstract  God.  We 
cannot  explain  further  the  instinct  or  the  inspiration  whicli 
does  this.  But  if  it  is  a  stumbling-block  to  us  in  religious 
matters,  it  must  be  a  stumbling-block  throughout  the 
whole  range  of  the  moral  faculties. 

As  regards  an  ideal  life — those  aims,  I  mean,  which, 
for  the  satisfaction  which  they  give  to  our  aspirations, 
may  be  put  forward  as  a  fall  and  sufficient  reason  for  life 
itself — this  ideal  and  these  aims  seem  to  be  threefold,  and 
to  spring  out  of  three  separate  instincts  which  man  and 
beast  have  in  common.  The  difference,  however,  between 
man  and  the  lower  animals  lies  in  this,  that  the  instincts 
of  animals  are  in  what  science  calls  a  position  of  stable 
equilibrium ;  if  you  move  them,  so  soon  as  the  emotion 
is  passed  they  return  to  the  state  they  were  in  before. 
But  man  by  each  emotion  is  pushed  towards  something 
better,  and  never  remains  constant  to  the  position  he  holds. 
His  instincts  develope  into  passions,  into  ideals  of  life,  and 
the  grosser  parts  of  them  fall  away.  Now  the  three 
instincts  which  seem  to  have  chiefly  worked  to  push  man 
forward  on  his  path  are  these.  First  there  is  the  sexual 
instinct,  which  we  know  both  in  its  brute  form  and  also 
(happily)  in  that  ideal  state  which  in  modern  times  and  in 

c  2 


20  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Christian  countries  it  has  been  able  to  reach.  Next  there 
is  the  gregarious  tendency,  which  makes  men  and  animals 
collect  together  in  bands,  for  purposes  of  mutual  help,  and 
which,  still  advancing,  raises  men  up  to  a  perfect  love  of 
country  or  of  humanity.  Last  of  all  there  is  this  still 
more  subtle  instinct  of  Belief,  which  lies  at  the  root  not 
of  religion  only,  but  of  all  imaginative  creation,  for  all 
poetry  and  art  (as  the  actual  history  of  poetry  and  art 
abundantly  testifies)  have  their  roots  in  wonder  and  in 
worship.  This  faculty,  too,  is  perhaps  shared  by  the  beasts 
in  some  measure.  Even  animals  have  a  certain  capacity 
for  looking  upward :  as  Bacon  says,  the  beasts  look  up 
to  man,  as  man  to  God.  But  their  eyes  are,  we  know, 
commonly  bent  down  to  earth;  and  if  the  instinct  of 
belief  is  shared  by  beasts,  it  is  so  in  but  a  small  degree. 

It  is  essential  to  belief  that  it  should  believe,  not  make 
Relieve.  And  this  furnishes  a  certain  distinction  between 
the  history  of  belief  and  the  history  of  art  and  poetry, 
which,  in  the  lighter  kinds,  are  often  engaged  rather  with 
fancy  than  conviction;  though,  in  truth,  these  are  far 
less  often  so  engaged  than  some  would  suppose.  Sidney, 
in  his  ( Apologie  for  Poetrie,'  gives  graceful  expression  to  a 
common  but  untrue  opinion  touching  poetic  creation,  sup- 
posing it  to  consist  in  mere  fancy,  and  to  be  quite  independ- 
ent of  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  its  creations.  '  There  is  no 
other  art,'  he  says,  'but  this  delivered  to  mankind  that  hath 
not  the  works  of  nature  for  his  principal  object,  without 
which  they  could  not  consist,  and  on  which  they  so  depend 
as  they  become  actors  and  players,  as  it  were,  of  what 
nature  will  have  set  forth.'  And  then  he  goes  on  to  claim 
that  '  only  the  poet,  disdaining  to  be  tied  by  any  such 
subjection,  lifted  up  with  the  vigour  of  his  own  invention, 
doth  grow  in  effect  another  nature,  in  making  things 
either  better  than  nature  bringeth  forth,  or  quite  new 
forms  such  as  never  were  in  nature,  as  the  Heroes,  Demi- 
gods, Cyclops,  Chimeras,  Furies,  and  such  like :  so  as  he 
goeth  hand  in  hand  with  nature,  not  enclosed  within  the 


POETIC  CREATION.  21 


narrow  warrant  of  her  gifts,  but  freely  ranging  only 
within  the  zodiac  of  his  own  wit.' 

The  view  itself  is  false  :  the  warrant  of  nature's  gifts, 
be  it  narrow  or  not,  has  been  wide  enough  for  man  ;  and 
the  instances  which  Sidney  has  chosen  to  support  his 
view  only  confirm  the  contrary.  The  Cyclops  is  a  personi- 
fication of  the  stormy  sky  ;  his  one  eye  is  the  sun  looking 
red  and  angry  through  the  clouds,  as  we  so  often  see  it  at 
the  end  of  a  tempestuous  day.1  The  Chimacra  is  herself 
the  cloud  which  drops  rain  as  the  goat  drops  milk.2  The 
Furies  (Erinyes)  are  descended  from  the  Vedic  Saranyu, 
the  dawn.3  Beings  like  these  are  the  first  fruits  of  man's 
poetic  faculty  in  its  commerce  with  nature.  But  they  are 
not  spun  out  from  his  imagination  independently  of  such 
prompting:  they  are  in  the  most  literal  way  the  actors 
and  players  of  what  nature  will  have  set  forth.  And  it  is 
with  such  creations,  with  beings  whose  character  is  deter- 
mined for  them  to  a  great  extent  by  the  phenomena 
which  they  personify,  that  the  student  in  the  history  of 
Belief  has  first  to  do.  It  is  long  before  he  need  be  con- 
cerned with  a  god  or  a  supernatural  being  who  is  a  pure 
abstraction:  he  first  gains  acquaintance  with  those  simpler 
divine  ones  of  primitive  days  who  are  gods  of  the  sunshine 
and  the  storm,  of  the  earth  glad  in  its  greenery  or  stripped 
bare  by  wintry  decay,  of  the  countless  laughing  waves  of 
the  sea,  of  the  wind  which  bloweth  where  it  listeth. 

Before  abandoning  this  discussion  over  the  definition 

1  The  Cyclops  is  not,  as  some  mythologists  loosely  say,  a  personification 
of  the  storm  ;  for  '  the  storm  '  as  so  used  is  an  abstraction,  whereas  the 
thing  personified  in  'this  and  the  other  cases  is  some  actual  phenomenon 
of  nature.  Therefore  each  one  of  the  Cyclops  must  be  thought  of  first  of 
all  as  the  stormy  sky.  Afterwards  they  become  separated  into  different 
parts  of  the  phenomenon  of  the  storm:  one  is  the  roll  (fyrfvTqs),  another 
is  the  flash  ((rrepdTnjj),  a  third  the  bright  whiteness  of  sheet  lightning 


apy. 

2  x'Va'Pa>  a  sne  g°at»  is  derived  from  xeijua,  winter  (also  storm), 
being  a  winterling,  i.e.  yearling. 

8  There  is  some  dispute  over  the  real  nature  of  the  Erinys.  In  another 
chapter  I  have  sought  to  reconcile  the  opinions  of  Kuhn  and  Max  Miiller 
on  Sarawyu  (Ch.  III.)  See  also  below,  p.  28 


22  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  belief,  it  may  be  as  well  to  compare  it  with  those  other 
definitions  of  religion  which  we  noted  jnst  now.  It  does 
not,  it  must  be  confessed,  quite  square  itself  with  these ; 
certainly  not  quite  with  those  two  sharply  contrasted  ones, 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  and  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's.  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer's  definition  in  full  is  this : — 

4  Leaving  out  the  accompanying  moral  code,  which  is 
in  all  cases  a  supplementary  growth,  a  religious  creed 
is  definable  as  an  a  priori  theory  of  the  universe.  The 
surrounding  facts  being  given,  some  form  of  agency  is 
alleged  which,  in  the  opinion  of  those  alleging  it,  accounts 
for  these  facts.  .  .  .  However  widely  different  speculators 
may  disagree  in  the  solution  which  they  give  of  the  same 
problem,  yet  by  implication  they  all  agree  there  is  a 
problem  to  be  solved.  Here,  then,  is  an  element  which  all 
creeds  have  in  common.  Religions  diametrically  opposed 
in  their  overt  dogmas  are  yet  perfectly  at  one  in  their 
conviction  that  the  existence  of  the  world  with  all  it  con- 
tains and  all  that  surrounds  it  is  a  mystery  ever  pressing 
for  interpretation.  On  this  point,  if  on  no  other,  there  is 
entire  unanimity.' 

How  stands  our  instinct  of  belief  in  relation  "to  that 
something  which  is  made  up  of  a  conviction  that  the 
world  with  all  it  contains  and  all  that  surrounds  it  is  a 
mystery  ever  pressing  for  interpretation  ?  Evidently  the 
mystery  which  hangs  around  their  origin  and  extent  is  a 
great  element  in  the  fear  with  which  most  parts  of  nature 
are  regarded  by  primitive  man ;  and  fear  is,  I  suppose,  of 
all  the  inward  feelings  which  man  acquires  consciousness 
of,  the  most  primitive.  The  history  of  words  bears  witness 
to  this  fact.  Other  metaphysical  words,  such  as  right, 
courage,  show  how,  at  a  comparatively  late  time,  the 
abstract  notions  have  worked  their  way  out  of  physical 
sensations.  But  the  only  physical  root  connected  with 
fear  is  the  visible  effect  of  it,  trembling  and  failing  of  the 
limbs.  We  are  justified  in  arguing  from  the  evidences 
of  language  that  neither  sense  of  right  nor  courage  were 


VHE 

UNIVERSIT 


MR.   SPENCER'S  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION.  23 


Imitive  elements  in  human  experience,  but  that  fear 
s  so.     No  doubt,  then,  but  that  this  mighty  affection 
the  mind,  which  in  time  softened  down  into  awe  and 
worship,  has  been  among  the  earliest  and  chiefest  of  the 
emotions  which  have  contributed  to  the  shaping  of  belief. 
The  sense  of  the  unknown  concerning  the  origin  of  things 
is  necessarily  a  concurrent  cause  of  the  fear  which  they 
inspire.     The  sense  of  the  unknown  must,  therefore,  be  a 
great  feature  in  all  primitive  creeds. 

By  these  considerations  we  seem  to  be  led  towards  Mr. 
Spencer's  conclusions,  but  we  are  not  brought  to  them. 
For  it  is  not  the  sense  of  the  unknown  as  an  instinct  or 
an  emotion  which  in  fact,  according  to  this  writer,  has 
contibuted  to  the  -formation  of  creeds.  According  to  him 
it  is  not  the  mere  feeling  of  mystery  which  is  paramount 
in  belief,  but  the  desire  to  explain  away  that  mystery. 
For  him  religion  is  before  all  else  a  Theory  of  the  Universe. 
Now  such  an  assertion  cannot  pass  unchallenged,  unless 
religion  be  a  thing  having  no  foundation  in  Belief. 

Belief  comes  into  existence  when  man  is  not  reasonable 
enough  to  have  a  theory  about  anything,  while  he  is  still 
mainly  a  feeling  animal,  possessing  only  some  adumbra- 
tions or  instincts  of  thought.  It  is  not  possible  that,  for 
man  in  such  a  condition,  either  his  belief  or  his  religion 
could  be  the  kind  of  theorising  which  Mr.  Spencer  sup- 
poses it.  Out  of  Mr.  Spencer's  definition  of  religion 
proceeds  directly  his  theory  of  the  origin  of  religion.  All 
worship  began,  he  says,  in  the  worship  of  ancestors.  The 
ghosts  of  dead  men  were  the  first  objects  of  religious 
belief.  It  is  no  doubt  natural  that,  starting  with  the 
definition  which  he  gives,  the  philosopher  should  have 
been  led  to  the  conclusion  which  he  has  arrived  at  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  religion.  We  can  understand  pretty 
well  that  if  man  had  before  all  things  else  desired  a  theory 
of  the  universe,  a  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  sunshine 
and  the  rain,  had  he  been  scientifically  minded  and  given 
to  reasoning  from  the  analogy  of  outward  experience,  he 


24  OUTLINES    OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

might  have  been  led  to  think  that  these  phenomena  were 
caused  by  human  agents.  His  natural  conclusion,  pro- 
ceeding on  such  grounds,  would  be  that  other  beings  like 
mankind  were  at  work  up  there  in  the  heaven  and  among 
the  clouds.  Man  is  the  only  agent  detected  in  the  process 
of  acting  and  intending :  reasonable  analogy  would  suggest 
that  man,  though  invisible,  was  the  author  of  other  acts 
even  when  remote  from  our  earthly  sphere.  This  is  just 
what  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  thinks  the  primitive  savage  did 
believe.  The  men  who  sent  the  rain  and  sunshine  were 
only  different  from  the  men  on  earth  in  the  fact  that  their 
sphere  was  different;  their  power,  perhaps,  was  more 
extended.  This  different  sphere  and  wider  power  were 
reached  through  the  portal  of  death.  .All  agents  in  the 
world  not  human,  or  at  least  not  mortal,  were  the  dead 
ancestors  of  the  tribe.  Hence  the  worship  of  ancestors 
is,  according  to  our  author,  the  origin  of  all  religion. 

All  this  is  consistent  with  Mr.  Spencer's  definition  of 
religion ;  but  it  is  not,  I  venture  to  think,  consistent  with 
the  facts.  Such  might  well  have  been  the  form  of  primi- 
tive belief,  had  man  started  with  his  theory  of  the  universe, 
and  tried  to  reason  of  the  origin  of  all  things  from  the 
knowledge  he  possessed.  But  man  is  not  so  reasonable 
a  being  at  the  outset,  and  this  truth  the  history  of 
language  shows  us  well.  Man's  instincts  far  outweigh  his 
reasonings,  and  religion  is  the  child  of  instinct,  not  of 
logic.  It  is,  I  venture  to  think,  because  Mr.  Spencer  has 
neglected  the  teaching  of  comparative  philology  upon  this 
point  that  he  has  been  led  to  the  conclusions  he  has 
reached.  The  abstract  words  which  express  a  power  of 
reasoning  are  among  the  last  which  attain  their  place  in  a 
language ;  the  intermediate  ones  are  those  which  tell  of 
the  instinctive  recognition  of  an  abstract  side  to  physical 
sensation.  Man's  first  belief  and  worship  were  things 
very  different  from  a  •'  theory  of  the  universe ; '  and  these 
bein£  so  much  more  instinctive  than  reasonable,  it  fell  out 
that  at  first  the  physical  parts  of  nature  were  worshipped 


MR.   MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S  DEFINITION.  25 

mtially  for  themselves.  It  was  at  the  first  the  very 
essence  of  the  divine  thing  that  it  was  not  human.  We 
shall  see  in  the  early  history  of  belief  how  necessary  is 
this  condition  of  the  non-humanity  of  the  nature  gods.1 

Nor,  again,  could  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  definition  of 
religion  be  made  to  serve  us  for  a  definition  of  belief. 
That  was,  it  will  be  remembered,  that  religion  was 
f  morality  touched  by  emotion.'  Such  a  definition  is  very 
far  from  holding  good  for  the  instinct  which  we  are  con- 
sidering. For  a  long  time  belief  has  so  little  to  say 
to  morality,  that  throughout  the  chapters  of  this  volume 
we  shall  scarcely  ever  have  to  contemplate  religion  in  its 
distinctly  moral  aspect.  When  a  belief  has  become 
anthropomorphic,  and  the  nature  god  has  changed  into  a 
divinity  like  unto  man  in  character,  then  the  laws  of  being 
which  apply  to  human  actions  become  his  laws  also.  The 
gods,  then,  should  grow,  and  do  for  the  .most  part,  into 
ideals  of  human  nature,  and  the  worship  of  them  becomes, 
in  effect,  a  worship  of  goodness.  This,  however,  only 
takes  place  after  a  great  lapse  of  time.  God,  when  the 
word  was  first  used,  was  not  synonymous  with  good.  The 


1  Nothing  but  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  great  name,  and  the  value  of  his 
researches  in  other  fields  (and  perhaps  some  unsuspected  influence  of  the 
otl'ntin  anti-theologiinim),  could  have  ma'ie  his  theory  of  the  origin  of 
religion,  and  his  arguments  in  support  of  his  theory,  so  eagerly  accepted 
as  they  have  been  by  a  large  number  of  intelligent  students  and  thinkers. 
It  is  natural  for  many  persons  to  like  even  to  be  'damned  with  Tully.' 
But,  in  truth,  Mr.  Spencer's  researches  in  other  fields  do  not  give  him  the 
weight  of  a  special  authority  in  this  one.  There  is  but  one  key  to  psycho- 
logy of  this  kind,  and  that  is  philology ;  and  to  this  the  philosopher  has 
never  turned  any  special  attention.  Physiology,  and  even  ethnology,  are 
guides  far  less  safe  than  the  undesigned  testimony  given  by  the  history  of 
words.  Accordingly,  as  he  is  really  treading  in  a  sphere  which  is  unfamiliar, 
Mr.  Spencer's  footsteps  are  here  far  less  firm  than  in  other  places.  Mr. 
Spencer,  upon  any  other  subject,  would  hardly  use  the  '  totem  theory'  in 
the  way  he  does  to  support  his  views.  The  totem  is  the  name  of  the  dead 
ancestor  who  is  supposed  to  have  become  the  ruler  of  any  special  part  of 
nature.  Mr.  Spencer  accounts  for  the  apparent  fact  that  men  do  actually 
worship  the  cloud  and  sea  and  sky  by  supposing  that  some  ancestor  had 
received  as  a  totem  the  name  of  '  cloud  '  or  '  sea  '  or  « sky.'  Surely  by  such 
a  wide  method  of  supposing  '  anything  may  be  made  of  anything,'  to  use 
a  happy  phrase  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold.  (See  Sociology,  p.  385  sqq.) 


26  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

idea  of  the  divinity  has  ever  responded  to  the  instinct  of 
worship,  and  that  worship  was  given  first  of  all  to  things 
which  impressed  the  senses.  While  the  things  of  nature  were 
still  the  gods,  the  in  oral  law  could  scarcely  apply  to  them. 
Whatever  Butler  may  argue  to  the  contrary,  there  is  no 
direct  moral  lesson  in  nature's  works.  She  brings  to 
death,  she  brings  to  life  ;  and  that  is  all  we  see  in  her.  The 
essence  of  primitive  belief  lies  in  the  same  outward  world 
and  in  its  changes ;  not  in  any  likeness  to  humanity,  but  in 
their  very  difference  from  it,  lie  the  wonder  and  the  charm 
of  these  external  things.  I  will  not  say  that  there  is  no 
hidden  teaching  in  this  kind  of  nature  worship.  It  is  true 
enough  that  all  things  which  excite  the  wonder  or  the 
awe  of  man,  whatever  quickens  his  perception  of  inward 
and  spiritual  things,  all  that  awakens  his  thought  and 
imagination,  are  his  masters.  When  fear  shall  in  time 
have  changed  into  awe,  and  wonder  into  worship,  then 
man  will  have  passed  beyond  the  region  of  Nature  to  a 
spiritual  nature,  and  what  is  great  outwardly  will  have 
given  place  to  what  is  great  in  virtue.  But  such  a  con- 
summation is  not  at  the  beginning. 

We  may,  indeed,  to  a  certain  extent,  conciliate  Mr. 
Arnold's  definition  of  religion  in  this  way.  We  may  agree 
to  consider  as  religious  only  those  beliefs  in  which  the 
moral  element  1ms  become  clearly  established.  Professor 
de  Gubernatis  intends  some  such  distinction  when,  in  his 
lectures  on  the  Yedic  mythology,1  he  separates  what  he 
calls  the  mythologic  and  the  religious  periods  of  the  Yedic 
creed.  The  first  period  is  that  in  which  the  divinities 
worshipped  were  strictly  nature  gods,  the  second  stage 
begins  when  the  god  is  something  more  than  a  mere  visible 
appearance.  He  may  still  be  worshipped  in  phenomena ; 
but  he  is  separated  from  them  in  the  thought  of  his 
votaries,  and  can  be  contemplated  as  one  apart,  living  in 
and  by  himself.  The  visible  world,  the  heavens,  or  the 
cloud,  or  the  sunshine,  is-  deemed  only  his  dwelling-place 
1  Letture  sopra  la  Mitologia  Vedica,  pp.  28,  29. 


MYTHOLOGY  AND  RELIGION.  27 

or  his  enfolding  garment.  And  because  the  god  has  now 
become  an  abstraction,  and  can  be  worshipped  as  such, 
Professor  de  Gubernatis  calls  this  condition  of  a  creed  its 
religious  phase:  the  earlier  phase  he  calls  the  mytho- 
logical one.  A  distinction  like  this  is  without  doubt 
somewhat  in  accordance  with  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  defi- 
nition of  religion ;  but  it  does  not  really  go  hand  in  hand 
with  it.  For  still  the  chief  feeling  in  the  mind,  either 
during  the  first  stage  of  belief  or  the  second,  is  not 
morality  '  touched  by  emotion,'  or  otherwise ;  still  the 
mainspring  is  the  instinct,  and  morality,  when  it  enters, 
comes  in  by  the  way. 

"We  may  have  occasion  hereafter  sometimes  to  make 
use  of  that  distinction  which  Professor  de  Gubernatis  has 
drawn  between  the  mythological  and  the  religious  phases 
of  belief;  meaning  by  the  first  the  period  during  which 
the  gods  are  essentially  material  things  with  a  nature 
remote  from  human  nature,  and  by  the  second  the  period 
during  which  they  are  essentially  idealised  beings  with 
natures  more  or  less  in  conformity  with  ours.  But  in 
giving  these  names  I  never  mean  it  to  be  thought  that 
either  religion  is  totally  excluded  from  the  earlier  (the 
mythic)  age,  or  myth  excluded  from  the  religious  age. 
There  is  always  mythology  alongside  of  the  more  religious 
kind  of  worship,  and  religion  growing  up  beside  mytho- 
logy. Only  at  first  there  is  a  preponderance  of  myth- 
making,  and  later  on  a  preponderance  of  the  religious 
feeling.  While  the  gods  are  purely  of  nature's  belongings 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  will  be  a  time  for  the  growth  of 
stories  concerning  them.  The  myths  are,  be  it  ever 
remembered,  the  creatures  of  real  belief,  not  of  mere 
fancy,  as  Sidney  would  have  them  be.  The  conception  of 
the  Cyclops  was  founded  on  what  men  had  seen ;  and  the 
myth  of  the  Cyclops  could  only  grow  in  natural  wise,  so 
long  as  men  really  believed  that  the  stormy  sky  was  a 
being  and  the  sun  his  eye.  When  the  Cyclops  had  be- 
come a  mere  one-eyed  giant,  then  all  new  tales  told  of 


28  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

him  would  be  but  inventions,  and  would  deserve  a  much 
lower  place  in  the  history  of  belief.  When  the  gods  have 
become  like  men,  and  have  lost  all  memory  of  the  pheno- 
mena out  of  which  they  sprang,  they  have  laid  aside  the 
individuality  of  their  characters ;  henceforward  they  will 
tend  more  and  more  towards  uniformity  of  nature ;  and 
this  uniform  nature  will  more  and  more  adapt  itself  to  a 
godlike  ideal.  Thus  the  influence  of  moral  ideas  will 
become  paramount  while  the  influence  of  the  experience 
of  outward  nature  fades  away. 

Of  the  growth  of  morality  in  belief,  and  of  the  way  in 
which  it  may  develope  along  with  the  contemplation  of  mere 
external  phenomena,  we  have  an  excellent  example  in  one 
among  those  mythic  beings  which  Sidney  enumerates. 
All  the  three — the  Cyclops,  the  Chimsera,  the  Furies — are 
fearful  creations ;  but  the  first  two  draw  all  their  terror 
directly  from  the  things  which  they  personify ;  they  are 
fearful  because  the  storm  itself  is  fearful.  No  natural 
dread  surrounds  Erinys,  who  is  the  Dawn  ; l  her  terrible- 
ness  arises  solely  from  a  moral  character  which  the  Dawn, 
is  led  to  take  upon  her.  She  is  the  detector  of  crimes  ;  at 
first  in  the  merely  passive  way  in  which  we  say  that  all 
crimes  will  some  day  come  to  light,  afterwards  in  a  more 
active  sense.  In  time  the  Erinyes  become  altogether 
moral  beings,  and  purely  abstract  ones,  '  the  honoured 
ancient  deities,  supporters  of  the  throne  of  Justice,  dear 
to  Zeus,'  whom  .ZEschylus  knows.  Yet  all  this  moral  cha- 
racter springs  out  of  their  natural  character.  They  become 
the  detectors  of  crimes  solely  because  the  daylight  must 
be  a  detector  of  crimes. 

These  three  examples  are  fairly  typical  of  the  whole 
range  of  beings  who  play  the  mythic  dramas  of  a  people. 
Though  all  must  have  had  a  beginning  in  outward  nature, 

1  This  is  Max  Mullet's  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  Erinyes  (Chips, 
ii.  153) ;  and  it  seems  to  me  a  valid  one,  despite  the  criticisms  of  Welcker 
(Griech.  Gotterl.  iii.  p.  75,  &c.)  and  the  different  origin  found  for  Sararayu 
by  Kuhn  (Zeitscli.  fiir  verg.  Sp.  i.  439).  Gubernatis  makes  some  suggestions 
which  tend  to  reconcile  these  discrepancies  (Mitel.  Ved.  p.  156). 


EARLY  PHASES   OF  BELIEF.  29 


some  (as  the  Greek  furies  do)  will  have  strayed  far,  others 
less  far  from  it.  Some  will  keep  the  whole  nature  which 
belongs  to  outward  things,  some  will  half  clothe  them- 
selves with  a  human  personality.  But  never  in  early 
times  shall  we  have  a  god  unlinked  to  external  phenomena. 
Wherefore  if  we  read  of  some  primitive  race  retiring  to  wor- 
ship in  its  rocky  fastnesses  or  woody  solitudes,  as  Tacitus 
says  the  Germans  retired  to  their  forest  haunts  and  wor- 
shipped an  Unseen  Presence  there,  we  must  not  think  of 
them  going  to  meditate  upon  the  riches  and  goodness,  nor 
yet  upon  the  power  and  wonder,  of  God.  The  presence 
made  known  to  them  may  be  an  unseen,  it  is  certainly  not 
an  unfelt  one ;  it  is  in  the  breath  of  the  wind  or  in  the  mur- 
muring of  the  stream  ;  it  is  in  the  storm  or  in  the  whirl- 
wind, but  it  is  not  yet  in  the  voice  of  the  heart.  The 
sensations  of  this  external  nature  stir  man's  imagination, 
they  raise  his  awe;  and  this  stirring  of  the  inner  senses 
constitutes  his  worship.  And  let  those  doubt  that  religion 
may  have  had  such  beginnings  who  have  never  listened 
to  the  voices  which  arise  from  the  solitudes  of  nature; 
those  who  have  never  known  the  brightness  of  sunny  fields 
and  streams,  the  sad  solemnity  of  forests,  and  the  majesty 
of  mountains  or  of  the  sea. 

§  2.  Early  Phases  of  Belief. 

Thus  much  to  show  the  mere  existence  and  the  essential 
character  of  this  faculty  of  Belief.  We  have  now  to  say 
something  concerning  the  phases  of  it.  Here  the  history  of 
language  will  still  be  our  guide.  What  we  have  at  present 
learned  of  the  parallel  histories  of  religion  and  of  language 
is  this  :  That,  as  at  first  all  words  expressed  only  the 
ideas  of  definite  material  objects,  but  many  of  these  words 
which  had  once  a  purely  material  significance  came  in 
time  to  have  a  purely  moral  or  metaphysical  significance, 
so  throughout  all  the  natural  world,  though  men  at  first 
gained  from  it  only  ideas  of  outward  sensation,  these  in 
time  changed,  and  metaphysical  and  moral  ideas  came  to 


30  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

take  their  place.  In  the  case  of  words  the  change  from 
the  physical  to  the  metaphysical  use  was  not,  we  may  be 
sure,  made  at  a  bound.  Stretched  did  not  suddenly  come 
to  mean  right,  nor  heap  to  mean  truth. 

Now  one  stage  in  that  slow  process  of  change  we  can 
certainly  detect.  The  first  step  was  'made  when  the  name 
for  an  individual  thing  had  expanded  its  meaning  to  take 
in  a  class  of  things.  When  words,  from  being  individual, 
or  what  we  now  call  proper  names,  had  grown  to  be  generic 
terms,  they  had  already  become  half  abstractions,  for  they 
had  become  names  for  aggregates  of  qualities  and  not  for 
individual  things.  I  took  just  now  stretched  as  the  example 
of  a  word  in  its  most  material  form ;  but  in  reality  a.  word 
was  in  its  most  material  form  only  so  long  as  it  was  not 
an  adjective,  but  expressed  some  single  object.  If  we  could 
imagine  for  a  moment  the  word  straight  or  stretched  as  the 
name,  not  of  any  string,  but  of  some  particular  string, 
then  we  should  have  a  word  in  its  most  primitive  possible 
condition.  The  next  stage  would  be  when  the  same  word 
was  used  to  express  a  class  of  objects — in  this  case  all 
strings  which  had  been  stretched.  The  stage  which  would 
immediately  follow  would  be  that  the  word  should  come 
to  be  an  adjective  (an  attribute),  and  no  longer  an  indi- 
vidual name.  We  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
process  of  the  human  thought,  exemplified  by  the  history 
of  words,  is  traceable  equally  well  in  the  development  of 
belief;  whence  it  would  follow  that  belief  too  has  passed 
from  individual  objects  to  groups  of  things,  and  thence 
has  fastened  upon  some  attribute,  still  physical,  but  no 
longer  apprehensible  by  all  the  senses,  which  belonged  to 
the  whole  class.  In  a  word,  religion  began  with  fetichism, 
with  the  worship,  we  will  suppose,  of  an  individual  tree ; 
it  passed  on  to  the  worship  of  many  trees,  of  the  grove  of 
trees,  and  it  soon  proceeded  thence  to  a  worship  of  some 
invisible  belonging  of  the  grove.  This  might  be  the  sacred 
silence  which  seems  to  reign  in  the  wood,  or  the  storm 
which  rushes  through  it,  or  any  of  the  dim,  mysterious 


MEANING  OF  'FETICH.'  31 

forest  sounds.  From  the  visible  and  tangible  things  of 
earth  religion  looked  farther  away  to  the  heavenly  bodies, 
or  to  the  sky  itself.  And  then  at  last  it  emerged  from  the 
nature-worshipping  stage,  and  the  voice  of  God,  which 
was  heard  once  in  the  whirlwind,  was  now  heard  only 
in  the  still  small  voice  within. 

With  the  last  phase  of  all  we  shall  in  these  chapters 
have  nothing  to  do  ;  nothing  directly,  at  all  events.  It 
scarcely  needs  to  be  said  that  no  one  of  the  three  phases 
of  belief  which  I  have  described  is  to  be  found  in  its  purity 
among  any  of  the  peoples  whose  religious  career  we  are 
going  to  study.  Each  phase  is  found  mingled  with  some 
other.  All  the  Indo-European  races  have  arrived  at  some 
point  in  the  third  condition  of  development ;  that  is  to  say, 
all  have  achieved  some  idea  of  an  abstract  god,  who  is 
separate  from  phenomena.  Bat  few  or  none  of  them  have 
completely  left  behind  any  of  the  other  two  conditions  of 
belief.  Wherefore  it  lies  in  our  hands  which  phase  we 
choose  to  study.  The  strata  of  belief  are  like  the  geolo- 
gical strata;  primitive  ones  may  be  discovered  sometimes 
quite  near  the  surface ;  the  nature  of  the  former  are  no 
more  to  be  told  by  measuring  their  distance  from  us  in 
time  than  that  of  the  latter  by  any  measurement  from  the 
surface  of  the  earth.  It  is  the  character  and  not  the 
actual  time  of  the  formation  which  allows  us  to  call  it 
primitive;  and  both  the  first  two  phases  of  belief,  both 
pure  fetichism  and  that  which,  to  distinguish  it  from 
fetichism,  we  may  call  nature  worship,  both,  wherever  they 
are  encountered,  may  fairly  be  called  phases  of  primitive 
belief. 

The  same  kind  of  difficulty  over  the  meaning  of  a  word 
which  has  obscured  discussion  upon  the  nature  of  religion 
itself  has  been  stirred  up,  in  a  minor  degree,  about  the 
word  fetich ;  and  here  with  less  excuse,  for  this  word 
carries  with  it  no  strength  of  old  association.  It  was  never 
during  the  days  of  its  early  use  applied  with  scientific  ex- 


32  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

actness,  and  it  was  first  employed  at  a  time  when  the  study 
of  belief  had,  in  any  effective  way,  hardly  begun.  If, 
therefore,  we  were  to  wrest  the  word,  a  little  from  its  first 
application,  in  order  to  make  it  serve  us  in  a  scientific 
sense,  there  would  be  no  great  harm. 

Mr.  Max  Miiller  has,  with  many  strong  arguments, 
called  in  question  the  very  general  assumption — system a- 
tised  somewhat  in  the  hands  of  Comte — that  fetichism  lies 
at  the  root  of  all  religion.  His  arguments  have  certainly 
been  sufficient  to  make  us  reconsider  our  use  of  the  word 
fetichism,  and  in  future  to  define  it  more  exactly ;  but  I 
do  not  think  they  have  really  shaken  the  position  which 
Comte  has  taken  up  on  this  point.  It  is  one  thing  to  show 
that  the  great  positive  philosopher  has  not  used  f  fetichism' 
in  its  etymological  significance,  or  even  that  he  has  not 
always  attached  to  the  term  the  same  meaning,  and  that 
others  who  followed  him  have  been  yet  more  vague  in  the 
use  of  the  word ;  it  is  another  thing  to  show  that  there 
has  been  no  primitive  belief  clinging  to  the  worship  of 
visible  external  things. 

Fetich  (feitiqo)  was,  it  is  known,  the  general  name  by 
which  the  Portuguese  sailors  in  African  seas  called  the 
charms  and  talismans  they  wore — their  beads,  or  crosses, 
or  images  in  lead  or  wood.  Seeing  that  the  native 
Africans  likewise  had  their  cherished  amulets  (their  gri- 
gris),  deemed  by  them  sacred  and  magically  powerful,  the 
Portuguese  called  these  by  the  same  name  of  fetich. 
Then,  in  1760,  came  De  Brosses,  with  his  book  on  '  Les 
Dieux  fetiches,'  proposing  this  condition  of  belief  as  an 
initial  state  of  religion.  His  term  as  well  as  his  views 
were  adopted,  and  fetichism  assumed  a  fixed  place  in  the 
history  of  religion. 

Neither  ihefeitigo  of  the  Portuguese  mariner,  nor  any 
Christian  amulet  or  relic,  is  distinctive  of  a  primitive  phase 
of  belief;  and  if  it  were  a  in  ere.  question  of  etymology  this 
would  be  enough  to  show  that  'fetichism'  did  not  cor- 
rectly describe  the  phase  of  belief  which  we  do  intend  to 


FETICHISM  AND  MAGIC.  33 

• 

designate  by  that  word.  The  power  which  is  possessed  by 
the  little  image  of  a  saint  or  of  the  Virgin,  by  a  bit  of  the 
true  Cross,  or  any  other  fiiti$o,  is  not  inherent  in  the  wood 
or  metal  itself,  but  has  been  given  it  from  elsewhere.  The 
sailor  does  not  imagine  that  the  thing  he  carries  is  the 
actual  author  of  the  gale  or  the  calm.  However  ignorant 
the  Christian  may  be,  and  however  superstitious  may  be 
his  attitude  before  the  image  of  his  saint,  he  never  adores 
that  as  a  thing  existing  of  itself ;  he  must  have  a  notion 
of  something  else  standing,  as  it  were,  behind  it,  and,  in 
one  way  or  another,  giving  it  the  power  to  act.  The  real 
test  of  his  belief  lies,  not  in  what  he  thinks  about  the 
fetich,  but  in  his  conception  of  this  Something  behind. 

It  is  superstitious,  no  doubt,  to  believe  that  an  image 
may  move,  may  sigh  and  groan,  but  it  is  not  primitive 
fetichism ;  for  the  very  sighing  and  groaning  are  noted 
as  miraculous,  and  that  they  are  so  thought  shows  a  know- 
ledge that  the  thing  is  after  all  but  dead  matter.  There 
would  be  nothing  wonderful  in  the  movement  of  an  image 
possessed  of  vitality,  and  yet  the  belief  in  the  possibility 
of  such  a  vital  image  would  savour  far  more  of  the  earliest 
phases  of  thought.  Even  the  Italian  peasant  woman  who 
beats  her  idol  does  not  so,  I  imagine,  with  the  intention 
of  hurting  it,  but  with  the  dim  belief  that  she  can,  through 
it,  hurt  some  other  being  who  seems  to  have  played  her 
false.  The  life  of  this  being  is,  in  some  way,  bound  up 
with  his  likeness,  but  the  saint  and  the  image  are  not  one. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  superstition  did  persons,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  make  likenesses  in  wax  of  some  enemy,  say 
incantations  over  it,  pierce  it  with  pins,  set  it  to  melt 
before  the  fire,  in  the  firm  conviction  that  they  were 
wreaking  their  vengeance  upon  him  when  far  away.  All 
this  is,  if  you  will,  the  grossest  superstition ;  it  implies  a 
very  low  conception  of  the  supernal  powers ;  but  ft  is 
not  an  example  of  fetichism  in  its  really  primitive  form. 
That  many  persons,  Comte  included,  have  spoken  of  this 
kind  of  superstition  as  belonging  to  the  earliest  phase  of 

D 


34  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

belief  lias  greatly  tended  to  confuse  men's  ideas  of  what 
fetichism  is  to  be  taken  to  mean,  and  has  led  others  justly 
to  question — as  Professor  Max  Miiller  has  done — whether 
fetichism  is  so  primitive  as  it  is  said  to  be. 

Others  again  have  confounded  fetichism  with  magic, 
and  so  have  come  to  speak  of  all  religion  as  founded  upon 
magic  rites.  This  too  I  conceive  to  be  an  error.  No 
belief  can  go  so  far  as  to  think  that  everything  possesses 
magical  power;  this  would  be  the  very  bull  of  credulity, 
comparable  to  that  extreme  doctrine,  of  (Irish)  republican- 
ism, that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another  and  better  too. 
But  if  all  things  are  not  alike  magical,  whence  arises  the 
superiority  of  one  thing  over  another  in  this  respect  ?  Does 
the  magic  power  rest  with  the  thing  itself?  If  this  is  so, 
what  distinguishes  magic  from  a  rude  form  of  natural 
science?  It  maybe  a  mistake  to  imagine,  for  example, 
that  a  piece  of  salt  or  a  lion's  tail  can  cure  a  fever,  but 
the  mistake  is  scarcely  in  itself  a  superstition.  And  why 
should  the  piece  of  salt  be  chosen  as  the  repository  of  this 
strange  power,  and  not  rather  a  piece  from  the  bark  of  a 
tree  of  the  Cinchona  tribe  which  really  possesses  it  ?  Is 
it  not  evident  that  the  superstition  of  magic  arises  from 
the  belief  that  their  potencies  are  arbitrarily  implanted  in 
certain  selected  objects  ?  And  the  very  word  c  arbitrarily ' 
implies  the  recognition  of  a  power  outside  the  object. 
Without  such  a  tacit  belief  in  a  power  behind  the  phe- 
nomenon magic  would  be  nothing  else  than  a  rude  experi- 
mental science.  The  modern  and  more  cultured  magician 
pronounces  his  charm  over  the  thing  he  designs  to  use ;  he 
never  imagines  that  the  magical  qualities  are  inherent  in 
the  thing,  but  always  that  they  come  through  the  agency 
of  the  incantation — that  is  to  say,  from  a  supernal  being, 
be  he  but  the  Devil.  The  unscientific  character  of  his 
belief  lies  just  in  this  :  that  he  looks  for  the  attributes  of 
a  substance  elsewhere  than  in  the  substance  itself.  If 
fetichism  were  a  superstition  of  this  kind,  we  should  have 
to  look  beyond  the  fetich-worshipper's  views  concerning 


FETICHISX  AND  MAGIC.  35 

the  material  things  to  his  views  about  the  power  which 
sent  the  magic.  Only  when  we  had  discovered  these,  could 
we  tell  what  place  the  savage  had  attained  in  the  stages 
of  religious  development. 

To  sum  up  in  one  example  the  whole  difference  between 
early  fetichism  and  late  superstition :  The  Portuguese 
sailor  prays  to  his  fetich  to  save  him  from  shipwreck,  be- 
cause he  believes  that  he  is  somehow  thus  influencing  nn 
Unseen  Being  who  has  power  over  the  winds  and  over 
the  waves.  The  African,  too,  has  a  notion  of  such  an  Un- 
seen Being  when  he  prays  to  his  cjri-yri  to  save  him  from 
the  storm.  Had  he  no  such  notion  he  would  pray  to  the 
winds  and  waves  themselves  not  to  drown  him. 

De  Brosses*  fetiches  are  of  the  late  or  magical  kind. 
Anything,  according  to  this  writer,  may  be  a  fetich — a  lion's 
tail,  a  piece  of  salt,  a  stone,  a  plant,  or  an  animal.  And 
yet,  as  we  have  shown,  everything  cannot  be  a  fetich.  The 
worship  paid  to  the  lion's  tail,  to  the  piece  of  salt,  to  the 
flower,  or  what  not,  implies,  though  it  does  not  outwardly 
express,  a  belief  in  something  beyond  the  visible  things. 
Therefore  it  would  be  very  unsafe  to  assert  that  the  African 
gives  us  an  example  of  the  earliest  conditions  of  religious 
growth.  Nevertheless  that  primitive  fetichism  has  existed 
we  cannot  doubt. 

If  the  facts  which  we  gathered  from  the  history  of 
words,  and  arrayed  in  the  first  part  of  this  chapter,  go  for 
anything,  there  must  have  been  a  time  when  man  was  in- 
capable of  conceiving  supernal  forces,  such  as  are  required 
for  the  magical  kind  of  fetichism  ;  for  his  whole  thoughts 
were  centred  in  the  actual.  Now  it  must  be  that  many  of 
the  qualities  which  objects  of  the  material  world  were  in 
primitive  times  thought  to  possess  had  been  reflected  back 
upon  them  from  the  feelings  which  those  objects  stirred  in 
the  beholder.  -We  saw  a  while  ago  how  this  was  continu- 
ally the  case.  The  high  thing  was  endowed  with  moral 
qualities,  because  looking  upward  aroused  some  moral 
thoughts.  In  a  general  way  all  material  things  share  in  a 

D   2 


36  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

certain  vitality,  which  is  shed  upon  them  by  the  subject ; 1 
in  a  more  particular  sense  certain  objects  are  selected  for 
worship  on  account  of  the  special  emotions  which  they 
excite.  All  worship  of  the  fetich  must  have  arisen  out 
of  that  subtle  connection  between  things  and  thoughts  of 
which  we  have  already  said  so  much ;  a  thing  which  was 
great  and  high  was  on  that  account  alone  admirable,  calling 
out  from  man  a  faint  fore-note  of  the  moral  sense.  The 
very  fact  that  there  was  as  yet  nothing  but  material  nature, 
and  no  thought  or  emotion  recognisable  in  itsfclf  alone, 
tended  to  surround  all  the  world  of  sense  with  a  thin 
atmosphere  of  thought  and  emotion ;  an  instinct  of  belief 
attached  itself  to  these  outward  things.  The  seeds  of 
future  poetry  and  ethic  were  being  carried  on  the  wings 
of  sensation,  but  had  not  yet  settled  and  taken  root. 

It  is  to  signify  this  condition  of  thought  that  we  can 
alone  fairly  use  the  word  '  fetichism/  if  we  intend  it  to 
express  an  early  stage  of  belief.  This  fetichism,  which  is 
really  primitive,  owns  no  thought  beyond  the  material 
object.  Here  the  fetich  was  not  the  means  of  concentrating 
the  mind  upon  an  internal  idea  of  God;  because  man,  in 
the  days  when  religion  first  began,  had  no  idea  of  God  at 
all.  God  is  a  notion  of  the  most  abstract  character,  and 
our  race,  we  well  know,  did  not  start  upon  its  career  fur- 
nished with  a  stock  of  abstract  ideas.  Man  did  not  say 
to  himself,  'That  mountain  or  that  river  shall  symbolise 
my  idea  of  God ; '  still  less  did  he  say,  '  These  things  are 
the  abode  of  God; '  he  only  made  the  objects  themselves 
into  gods  by  worshipping  them. 

Although  in  this  condition  of  thought  nothing  was 
wholly  divine,  and  yet  everything  was  in  a  fashion  divine — 
for  a  voice  spoke  to  man  out  of  each  object  of  sense—  it 
not  the  less  necessarily  followed  that  worship,  to  any  ob- 
servable extent,  could  only  attach  itself  to  certain  con- 
spicuous objects,  which  should  in  time  develope  into  what 

1  It  is  this  capacity  of  reflecting  vitality  on  immaterial  things  which 
Mr.  Tylor  calls  animism. — Primitive  Culture,  passim. 


FROM  FETICHISM  TO  NATURE  WORSHIP.  37 

we  may  fairly  call  gods.  It  is  not  in  the  case  of  this  kind 
of  fetichisrn  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  magical  fetichism, 
where  any  object,  however  insignificant,  may  be  the  re- 
ceptacle of  potency  from  without.  Here  the  worship  must 
be  proportionate  to  the  impressiveness  of  the  thing ;  we 
may  even  say  that  it  must  be  proportionate  to  the  great- 
ness or  the  height  of  the  thing.  In.  truth,  it  would  seem 
that  the  great  fetich  gods  of  the  early  world  were  three, 
and  three  only — the  tree,  the  mountain,  and  the  river.1 
Lesser  fetiches  took  their  holiness  from  the  greater — the 
stone  from  the  mountain,  the  branch  or  the  block  of  wood 
from  the  tree.  But  such  lesser  fetiches  were  not  wor- 
shipped in  the  prime  of  fetichism.  They  are  in  almost 
every  case  where  they  are  to  be  met  with  the  survivals 
from  an  earlier  belief. 

Names,  we  know,  from  being  individual  become  generic. 
The  first  word  for  river  must  have  indicated  some  par- 
ticular stream  ;  later  on  it  came  to  imply  all  those  quali- 
ties which  rivers  have  in  common,  and  with  the  benefit  of 
a  wider  scope  for  language  man  lost  a  certain  distinctness 
and  picturesqueness  in  it.  The  word  tree,  when  for  us  it 
meant  only  the  single  tree  outside  a  nursery  window,  was 
in  a  fashion  far  more  expressive  than  it  has  since  been. 
While  the  generalising  process  of  language  goes  on,  it 
leads  to  a  gradual  detachment  of  their  attributes  from  the 
individual  things,  and  the  formation  of  these  attributes  or 
adjectives  into  a  class  of  ideas  by  themselves.  The  mind 
learns  to  separate  the  brightness  and  the  swiftness  of  flow- 
ing water  from  any  one  example  of  these  qualities,  and 
the  result  is  that  we  get  the  conception  of  the  attributes 
brightness  and  swiftness  by  themselves.  The  same  change 
took  place  in  belief.  The  holiness  which  once  belonged 
to  a  single  object  was  distributed  over  the  aggregate  of 
existences  of  the  same  kind,  and  the  idea  '  holiness '  was 

1  The  sea,  as  will  be  presently  more  fully  explained,  is  by  primitive  man 
reckoned  in  the  class  of  rivers. 


38  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

thus  abstracted  in  a  certain  degree  from  the  particular 
holy  thing — in  a  certain  degree,  but  not  entirely.  The 
tree,  for  example,  became  less  personally  sacred  than  sur- 
rounded by  an  atmosphere  of  sacredness  ;  and  this  sanctity 
now  belonged,  not  to  one  tree,  but  to  the  whole  grove  of 
trees.  The  general  idea  in  this  way  replaced  the  indi- 
vidual one ;  and  in  the  course  of  time  the  sense  of  holiness 
was  transferred  to  other  belongings  of  the  grove  far  less 
tangible  and  real  than  the  trees.  As  I  have  suggested 
above,  the  sacred  silence,  the  murmuring  of  streams,  the 
rushing  of  the  wind,  may  constitute  the  next  hierarchy  of 
gods. 

The  stage  of  belief,  when  no  worship  was  bestowed  upon 
pure  ideals — that  is  to  say,  upon  qualities — we  may  call  the 
second  stage  in  the  development  of  belief.  It  is  a  phase 
which  was  far  from  having  been  quite  abandoned  even  in 
the  historical  ages  of  most  among  the  Indo-European  folk, 
and  which  has,  in  consequence,  more  often  come  under 
the  notice  of  casual  observers  than  has  fetichism.  We 
often  enough  come  across  traces  of  the  worship  of  trees 
in  the  creeds  of  Aryan  races  ;  but  we  still  more  frequently 
hear  the  grove  spoken  of  as  having  preceded  the  temple. 
( Trees,'  says  Pliny,  '  were  the  first  temples.  Even  at 
this  day  the  simple  rustic,  of  ancient  custom,  dedicates  his 
noblest  tree  to  God.  And  the  statues  of  gold  and  ivory 
are  not  more  honoured  than  the  sacred  silence  which  reigns 
about  the  grove.'1  It  was  the  same  sacred  silence  of  the 
grove  which,  according  to  Tacitus,  the  Germans  wor- 
shipped in  their  forest  fastnesses.  Aristophanes,  in  a 
revolt  against  the  image  worship  and  the  superstition  of 
his  day,  proposes  half  seriously  to  revert  to  such  earlier 
customs  as  that  of  worship  in  the  grove  ;  he  calls  upon  the 
Athenians  to  leave  their  closed  shrines  and  to  sacrifice  in 
the  open  air,  and  in  place  of  the  temple,  with  its  golden 
doors,  to  dedicate  the  olive  tree  to  new  gods.2 

Such  a  state  of  feeling  as  this  was,  when  it  arose,  a 
1  H.  N.  xii.  2.  2  Aveg. 


NATUEE  WORSHIP.  39 

decided  advance  upon  the  gross  conceptions  of  fetichism. 
Then,  on  every  side,  the  more  material  things  were  loosen- 
ing their  hold  upon  men's  imagination  and  falling  from 
their  former  place,  and  worship  was  transferred  to  things 
either  more  abstract  or  more  remote  from  common  expe- 
rience, things  which  were  wide,  far-reaching,  or  heavenly. 
Instead  of  the  tree,  the  mountain,  and  the  river,  man 
chose  for  his  gods  the  earth,  the  storm,  the  sky,  the  sun, 
the  sea.1  Men  were  well  upon  the  road  towards  a  personal 
divinity — that  is  to  say,  to  the  deification  of  qualities  or 
attributes.  The  idea  of  personality  (and  by  personality  I 
mean  all  which  constitutes  the  inner  being,  the  I),  the  idea 
of  personality  apart  from  matter  must  have  been  growing 
more  distinct  when  men  could  attribute  personality  to  such 
an  abstract  phenomenon  as  the  sky. 

It  is  of  the  existence  of  this  second  stage  in  the 
development  of  belief  that  Comparative  Philology  fur- 
nishes us  with  such  decisive  proofs  and  such  interesting 
examples.  And  as  it  is  chiefly  with  beliefs  in  this  stage 
that  the  chapters  of  this  volume  are  concerned,  and  as  the 
nature  of  the  general  testimony  to  the  existence  of  this 
special  phase  of  belief  which  is  afforded  by  language  can 
so  easily  be  shown,  it  will  be  well  if  we  turn  aside  an 
instant  from  an  historical  enquiry  in  order  to  glance  at 
the  method  of  Comparative  Philology  when  dealing  with 
questions  such  as  these. 

We  know,  of  course,  nothing  directly  of  our  Aryan 
ancestors  themselves,  but  we  know  the  various  tongues 
which  have  descended  from  their  primitive  speech — the 
Sanskrit,  the  Zend,  the  Greek,  the  Latin,  the  Teutonic, 

1  It  is,  of  course,  obvious  that  the  phenomena  here  enumerated  do  not 
all  show  an  equal  remoteness  from  fetichism,  nor  an  abstraction  of  the 
same  sort.  The  earth,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  a  general  notion  of  a  very  wide 
kind ;  but,  as  it  is  actually  considered  in  mythology,  it  is  perhaps  the 
nearest  to  a  fetich  god  of  all  the  five  phenomena  given  above.  It  always 
tends  to  coincide  with  some  particular  bit  of  the  earth,  some  individual 
mountain  or  valley.  The  sea  begins  by  being  a  mere  river  fetich,  but  when 
men  have  learnt  something  of  its  boundless  extent  it  becomes  distinctly  an 
abstract  idea. 


40  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEP 

the  Celtic,  the  Slavonian — and  which  all  stand  in  a  rela- 
tionship more  or  less  intimate  with  it.  By  examining  the 
relationship  which  exists  between  words  of  the  same 
meaning  in  different  Indo-European  languages,  we  draw 
one  most  valuable  conclusion  touching  the  life  of  these 
ancient  Aryas.  If  the  names  of  anything  in  the  children 
languages  all  appear  to  have  sprung  from  one  root,  we 
argue  that  the  thing  was  known  to  the  Aryan  progenitors, 
and  by  them  endowed  with  a  name  which  is  the  parent 
of  the  names  which  have  come  down  to  us.  If  the  Aryas 
had  not  known  the  thing,  they  could  not  have  given  it  a 
name ;  and  conversely,  if  they  have  not  given  it  a  name 
they  could  not  have  known  the  thing.  Once  more  :  if  the 
name  existed  among  the  Aryas  it  will  be  found  again 
(somewhat  changed,  no  doubt)  among  their  children ; 
conversely,  if  the  same  word  does  not  pervade  the 
children  languages  it  has  not  pre-existed  in  the  parent 
one.  These  are  the  general  principles  on  which  we  build 
up  the  sum  of  our  knowledge  of  prehistoric  times.  When, 
for  example,  we  find  such  a  word  as  the  Sanskrit  go  (cow) 
corresponding  by  proper  laws  of  change  !  to  names  for  the 
same  animal  in  Greek,  Latin,  Persian,  German,  &c.,  we 
argue  that  the  ancient  Aryas  were  acquainted  with  horned 
cattle.  The  words  in  the  offshoot  languages  point  back 
to  a  word  not  unlike  them,  in  the  parent  tongue ;  and  as 
the  word  has  continued  to  denominate  the  same  thing  to 
the  children,  it  must  have  denominated  the  thing  (viz. 
horned  cattle)  to  the  parents. 

Further  than  this,  if  we  want  to  get  the  nearest  ap- 
proximation to  the  lost  Aryan  word2  we  turn  first  to  the 
Sanskrit  to  give  it  us ;  because  we  both  know  historically 
that  Sanskrit  is  the  oldest  among  the  brother  languages 
and  likewise  find,  upon  examination,  that  Sanskrit  can 

1  Skr.  go  (gaus),  Zend  gao,  Gr.  ftovs,  Lat.  bos,  Germ,  kuh,  Eng.  cow, 
Irish  bo,  Slavonic  gov-iado  (ox). 

2  It  has  been  already  said  that  proto-Aryan  is  a  better  word  to  express 
the  lost  speech  of  our  ancestors  than  Aryan,  though,  for  the  sake  of  short- 
ness and  simplicity,  the  latter  will  be  for  the  future  employed. 


DYlUS,   THE  SKY  GOD.  41 


generally  show  us  how  a  word  acquired  its  meaning,  when 
the  other  tongues  are  silent  upon  this  matter.  Our  word 
daughter  is  a  good  instance  in  point.  It  corresponds  to 
the  Sanskrit  duhitar,  the  Persian  dochtar,  the  Greek 
Bvydrrjp,1  &c.  ;  and  so  we  come  to  the  same  conclusion 
about  daughter  which  we  arrived  at  concerning  horned 
cattle,  namely,  that  the  old  Aryas  had  a  word  from  which 
ours  is  a  descendant.  But,  in  this  instance,  we  have  a 
clear  proof  thai,  among  the  various  forms  which  have 
come  down  to  us,  that  preserved  in  the  Sanskrit  is  the 
oldest,  because  in  that  only  can  we  see  how  the  word  was 
formed.  We  connect  duhitar  with  a  verb  dtih,  to  milk, 
and  recognise  the  origin  of  our  '  daughter ;  to  have  been 
*  the  milker J — the  milkmaid  of  the  family. 

Now  let  us  apply  the  same  method  of  research  to 
mythology.  We  find  a  Zeus,  chief  god  among  the  Greeks, 
a  Jupiter2  among  the  Romans;  we  have  a  Zio  (Tiv  or 
Tyr),  an  important  divinity  with  the  Teutons,  and  a 
Dyaus  with  the  old  Indians.  All  these  words  are  from 
the  same  root;  and  as  we  reasoned  in  the  case  of  go, 
so  must  we  reason  now— namely,  that  the  root  of  these 
words  was  the  name  of  an  Aryan  divinity.  As,  moreover, 
this  name  is  the  most  widespread  of  all  *the  mythical 
names  in  the  Indo-European  family,  we  are  justified  in 
assuming  that  the  lost  parent-word  betokened  a  chief,  if 
not  the  chief,  Aryan  god.  We  might  call  him  Dyaus, 
because  Dyaus,  we  conjecture,  most  nearly  replaces  the 
lost  name.  But  more  than  this.  As  was  the  case  with 
duhitar  among  all  the  words  for  daughter,  so  Dyaus, 
among  all  similar  names,  is  the  only  one  whose  origin 
can  be  accounted  for.  Dyaus  means  sky.3  No  doubt 

1  F-->r  Svxdr-rjp,  by  change  of  aspirates. 

2  From    Uyii  us-pi  tar,   father    Dyaus,    gen.    Jovis,  dat.    Jovi   (Aiovffi 
Mommsen,  Unterital.  Dial.,  p.  191). 

3  The  bright  ski/  especially,  as  it  is  connected  with  the  word  dir,  to 
shine.     Most  philologists,  yielding  to  their  too  common  habit  of  treating 
the  abstraction  or  generalisation  (adjective  or  verb)  as  the  parent  of  all 
the  concrete  words  of  the  sarne  class,  have  spoken  of  Dyuus  (Dyo)  as  derived 


OF  THK 

UNIVERSITY 


42  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

therefore  but  that  the  lost  proto-Dyaus  was  also  the  sky. 
Nay,  if  any  further  proof  of  this  were  needed,  Zeus  and 
Jupiter,  though  their  names  no  longer  recalled  the  heavens,1 
nevertheless  largely  did  recall  the  sky  in  their  natures. 
And  how  could  this  have  been  unless  the  god  from  whom 
they  sprang  had  possessed  the  properties  and  the  powers  of 
a  sky  god  in  a  more  eminent  degree  than  they?  In 
truth,  the  old  Aryan  god  was  the  sky.  Whenever  the 
Aryan  used  the  name  of  this  his  divinity,  the  -sky  must  at 
the  same  time  have  been  present  in  his  thoughts,  and  in 
the  most  literal  sense  he  worshipped  that  portion  of  nature 
as  a  god.  Doubtless  the  old  Aryas  worshipped  other 
phenomena  likewise ;  but  these  too  they  adored  under 
their  physical  names  and  not  as  separate  entities. 

When  we  have  not  the  direct  help  of  etymology,  as  in 
the  case  of  Dyaus,  to  determine  the  original  nature  of  a 
divine  being,  we  have  the  help — scarcely  less  valuable  if 
rightly  used— of  comparative  mythology,  In  the  various 
pantheons  which  spring  from  one  parent  creed  we  find 
the  same  gods  recurring  in  slightly  different  guises ;  and 
here  and  there  they  betray  the  substance  on  which  their 
being  is  grounded. 

It  is  not' difficult  to  see  that  the  clothing  of  these 
things  with  human  form  is  the  last  stage  of  the  three 
initial  ones  in  the  history  of  belief,  and  that  anthropo- 
morphism, when  it  has  once  arisen,  can  never  degenerate 
into  nature  worship.  If  Zeus  or  Odhinri  is  once  conceived 
clearly  as  an  unseen  being,  as  some  one  sitting  apart  in 
Olympus  or  in  Asgard,  there  is  little  danger  that  lie  will 
come  to  be  confounded  with  the  visible  storm.  He  may 
be  the  storm-sender,  but  he  cannot  be  the  actual  pheno- 
menon which  he  rules.  Yet  even  such  gods  as  Zeus  and 
Odhinn  drop  here  and  there  a  token  to  show  that  they 

from  the  root  div,  to  shine.     It  would  be  quite  as  reasonable  to  speak  of 
die  derived  from  dyb.     Probably,  however,  neither  comes  directly  from  the 
other,  both  from  a  lost  parent- word  which  may  also  have  meant  sky. 
1  Or  only  occasionally,  as  in  the  phrase  '  sub  Jove.' 


NATURE  WORSHIP  THE  CAUSE   OF  HENOTHEISM.        43 

were  once  not  unseen  beings,  but  visible  things,  bound 
within  the  limits  which  included  their  special  phenomena. 
The  indication  in  this  or  the  other  instance  may  be  slight ; 
it  accumulates,  as  we  find  a  hundred  examples  ;  and  when, 
following  the  creed  back  to  its  more  primitive  forms,  or 
comparing  it  with  some  kindred  system  which  is  less 
advanced,  we  see  the  god,  whose  personality  at  one  time 
seemed  so  clear,  fading  gradually  away  till  he  dissolves  in 
air,  or  cloud,  jor  rain,  or  sunshine,  the  inference  with  respect 
to  the  total  genesis  of  belief  grows  so  exacting  that  we 
cannot  choose  but  receive  it. 

If  it  be  true — and  who  will  deny  it  ? — that  no  idea  can 
be  clearly  grasped  unless  there  be  a  word  to  express  it,  we 
must  confess  that  the  Aryas,  in  the  condition  in  which  we 
now  suppose  them,  were  still  without  a  god.  The  word 
which  expressed  the  thing  they  worshipped  meant  also  the 
sky,  or  it  meant  the  wind,  or  the  sea,  or  the  earth.  When 
they  saw  these  things  they  worshipped ;  when  the  pheno- 
mena were  absent  they  were  forgotten.  For  the  memories 
of  savages  are  short ;  their  emotions  are  very  transitory, 
and  are  almost  always  under  the  immediate  influence  of 
outward  sensations.  Even  in  later  times,  when  the  god 
is  a  personality  and  has  a  name  of  his  own,  so  long  as  he 
is  associated  with  phenomena,  he  will  suffer  the  same 
kind  of  alternate  reverence  and  neglect.  Gubernatis 
notices  concerning  Indra,  the .  storm  god,  that  in  some  of 
the  Vedic  hymns  he  is  only  reverenced  when  he  is  active ; 
when  he  is  inactive  he  is  scarcely  thought  of.1 

As  one  by  one  the  phenomena  pass  in  review  each  one 
while  it  is  present  seems  to  be  the  god,  and  is  worshipped 
with  all  the  ardour  of  which  the  suppliant  is  capa,ble. 
When  we  read  the  votary's  prayers  to  any  part  of  nature, 
we  might  fancy  he  worshipped  no  other  part.  But  this  is 
not  the  case.  The  explanation  of  this  seeming  changeable- 
ness  from  god  to  god  lies  in  the  shortness  of  the  savage's 
memory  and  the  difficulty  which  he  finds  in  realising  any- 
1  Letture  sopra,  la  Mittologia  Vcdica,  p.  28. 


44  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

tiling  but  his  present  sensation.  The  sun  is  at  one  moment 
his  only  god ;  but  it  sinks  to  rest,  and  now  he  prays  to  the 
heaven,  studded  with  its  thousand  stars.  Again  these  are 
overclouded,  and  from  the  clouds  issues  the  blinding  flash 
or  the  awful  roll  of  thunder ;  and  then  the  pure  sky  is  for- 
gotten and  he  prays  to  the  lightning  and  the  storm.  A 
stage  of  belief  such  as  this,  when  each  divinity  seems  for 
the  time  to  stand  by  himself  and  to  be  prayed  to  alone,  has 
been  called  by  Mr.  Max  Miiller  henotheism.1  "The  cause  of 
henotheism,  then,  lies  in  the  worship  of  actual  physical 
phenomena.  The  same  nature  origin  of  the  gods  affords 
a  satisfactory  explanation  of  polytheism ;  and  polytheism 
is  a  state  of  belief  not  so  easily  accounted  for  as  some 
suppose. 

The  belief  in  one  god  is  a  thing  not  difficult  to  under- 
stand ;  for — whether  it  be  true  or  false — it  is  a  belief 
of  which  we  have  a  hundred  examples  around  us.  The 
god-idea  is  a  distinct  creation  of  the  human  mind  :  it  is  a 
conception  in  itself.  The  very  essence  of  this  conception 
is  the  difference  between  god  and  man.  But  to  what 
instinct  does  the  belief  in  many  gods  respond?  The 
difference  between  god  and  god  cannot  be  an  observed 
difference,  as  that  between  tree  and  tree  or  between  man 
and  man.  The  general  terms  tree  and  man  express  an 
aggregate  of  qualities  found  to  be  common  to  a  great 
number  of  different  objects,  as  these  objects  come  within 
the  range  of  our  experience.  But  god  is  not  a  general 
term  of  this  class.  The  god-idea  does  not  include  any- 
thing which  is  a  part  of  outward  experience.  If  there  were 
a  great  many  different  gods,  our  knowledge  of  them  would 
not  be  of  an  external,  experimental  kind.  Our  abstract 
word  cgod'  would  not  have  been  obtained  by  means  of  a 
generalisation  of  the  qualities  which  the  polloi  theo'i  had 
in  common,  in  the  same  way  that  'tree'  is  a  generalisa- 

1  '  If  we  must  have  a  general  name  for  the  earliest  form  of  religion 
among  the  Vedic  Indians,  it  can  be  neither  monotlielsm  nor  polytheism,  but 
only  henothffigm.' — Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  260. 


NATURE  WORSHIP  THE  CAUSE  OF  POLYTHEISM.        45 

tion  of  the  qualities  of  many  trees.  On  the  contrary,  the 
many  gods  would  owe  their  common  name  to  the  fact  that 
they  shared  in  some  inward  quality  which  we  had  pre- 
viously determined  was  essential  to  divinity.  But  to  what 
in  this  case  would  the  polloi  theoi  owe  the  difference  of 
their  natures  ?  Why  should  Zeus  be  unlike  Hermes,  and 
why  Apollo  different  from  both?  The  explanation  once 
universally  given,  and  even  now  thought  c  generally  suffi- 
cient,' is  that  the  characters  of  the  gods  are  the  result  of 
mere  invention,  and  in  fact,  the  children  of  fancy.  But 
such  a  notion  is,  as  we  have  before  agreed,  inconsistent 
with  the  seriousness  of  true  belief.  It  was  the  explanation 
which  Sidney  gave  of  the  birth  of  the  Chimsera  and  of 
the  Furies ;  and  if  the  explanation  was  insufficient  for 
the  beings  which  people  the  outer  circles  of  mythology, 
far  less  sufficient  is  it  for  those  who  occupy  the  central 
place  in  a  creed. 

When,  however,  we  realise  that  the  gods  were  once 
confounded  with  natural  phenomena,  all  difficulty  in 
accounting  for  their  characters  is  taken  away.  Apollo  is 
not  like  Hermes,  because  the  sun  is  not  like  the  wind. 
Just  so  long  as  the  natures  of  both  are  connected  with  out- 
ward nature  will  their  characters  remain  apart,  and  yet 
the  belief  in  both  remain  real.  When  they  become  alto- 
gether abstract  conceptions,  either  the  two  will  merge  in 
one  or  one  of  them  will  lose  his  divine  character.  He  will 
then  become  a  subject  for  fancy  and  for  the  invention  of 
poets  ;  he  will  no  longer  be  an  object  of  worship. 

This  nature- worshipping  stage  of  belief,  then,  is,  so 
long  as  it  remains  pure,  the  stage  of  the  most  pure  and 
unmixed  polytheism.  So  long,  and  only  so  long,  as  the 
name  of  the  god  and  the  name  of  the  element,  the  portion 
of  nature,  are  one;  so  long  as  the  being  is  thus  identified 
with  earth,  or  sky,  or  sea ;  and  so  long  as  no  being  is  wor- 
shipped under  a  name  which  has  ceased  to  be  the  expres- 
sion of  an  outward  thing — the  polytheistic  belief  remains ; 
for  while  this  state  continues  it  is  impossible  that  the 


46  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

deity  of  one  element  can  have  control  over  the  god  of 
another,  seeing  that  each  is,  of  necessity,  confined  to  his 
own  province. 

Evidently  the  nature-worshipping  stage  of  belief  is  a 
change  and  an  advance  upon  fetichism.  The  more  the 
deity  is  raised  above  the  level  of  common  things,  the  more 
great  and  high  does  he  become;  and  becoming  thus 
greater,  the  more  does  he  tend  to  absorb  into  himself  the 
thoughts  of  the  worshipper.  He  approaches  so  much  the 
nearer  to  an  abstract  god. 

The  third  and  last  stage  in  early  religious  development 
is  the  anthropomorphic  stage,  which  links  nature  worship 
on  to  monotheism.  We  have  seen  how,  while  the  nature 
worship  remaine'd,  the  creed  was  purely  polytheistic ;  how, 
as  the  sea  could  have  no  control  over  the  sky,  nor  the  sky 
over  the  earth,  the  gods  who  represented  these  things 
must  remain  apart.  But  in  time  the  change  does  come. 
Then  Zeus  and  Zio  no  more  recall  to  those  who  use  their 
sacred  names  the  overspreading  heaven ;  all  they  suggest 
is  the  idea  of  beings  having,  in  some  way,  the  character 
of  the  sky,  in  an  obscure  and  mystic  way  not  obvious  to 
the  sense  of  the  worshipper.  Zeus  and  Zio  have  grown 
into  proper  names,  designations  of  persons  and  not  of 
things ;  and  the  gods  stand  out  as  clear  and  as  thinkable, 
in  virtue  of  this  name,  as  any  absent  friend  may  be.  The 
Aryans  have  made  an  immense  step  forward  when  they 
have  arrived  at  this  point. 

Through  the  natural  changes  which  time  works  in 
every  mythic  system  may  be  traced  this  process  of  finding 
a  name  for  that  aggregation  of  ideas  which  is  gradually 
settling  into  what  we  understand  by  the  word  god.  With 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  Dyaus  remained  the  chief  god, 
because  in  his  changed  names,  Zeus  and  Jupiter,  he  no 
longer  represented  the  sky ;  in  India,  on  the  contrary, 
because  Dyaus  did  recall  some  natural  appearance  he 
ceased  to  be  the  chief  divinity,  and  his  place  was  supplied 


ZEUS  AND    THEOS.  47 

>y  Indra,  for  Indra's  name  has  not  a  direct  physical 
meaning.1 

Had  the  Indians  and  the  Greeks  continued  always  in 
the  same  spiritual  condition -the  name  of  their  highest 
god  might  indeed  have  changed — such  changes  are  in  the 
nature  of  mythology — but  no  change  would  have  been 
effective  to  abstract  their  thoughts  from  the  phenomena 
of  sense.  The  alterations  would  have  been  in  a  direction 
the  very  opposite  to  that  which  they  actually  took.  Dyaus 
would  have  remained  the  chief  god  of  the  Indians,  and 
another  old  Aryan  god,  Varuna  (in  the  form  Ouranos), 
would  have  become  the  chief  god  of  the  Greeks  ;  because 
Dyaus  and  Ouranos,  in  Sanskrit  and  Greek,  still  stood  for 
the  sky. 

Suppose  Dyaus,  then,  to  have  become  a  proper  name. 
We  have  not  yet  seen  how  it  grows  to  be  a  generic 
one.  This  last  consummation  cannot  be  far  off.  When  a 
phenomenon,  a  thing,  is  changed  into  a  person,  and  bap- 
tised with  an  appellation  of  its  own,  the  tendency  will 
arise  to  call  other  phenomena  of  nature  by  the  same 
name.  We  shall  have  a  sea  Zeus,  an  earth  Zeus,  while 
men  will  mean  thereby  only  what  we  understand  by  the 
words  sea  god,  earth  god.  We  do  see  survivals  of  such 
a  method  of  nomenclature  in  the  pantheons  of  Greece  and 
Rome — in  such  a  name,  for  example,  as  Zeus  Chthonios, 
which  is  really  synonymous  with  Hades,  and  designates  a 
different  personage  from  the  Zeus  Olympios  ;  in  the  Zeno- 
poseidon,  of  whom  weThave  some  traces,2  and  in  the  use  by 
the  Latins  of  the  word  Junones  as  a  synonym  for  god- 
desses. An  example  of  the  same  kind  is  the  association 
of  Indra's  name  with  almost  all  the  other  gods  of  the 
Veda — e.g.  Indragni,  Indrasomo,  Indravayu,  Indravaruno. 
These  must  mean  merely  God  Agni,  God  Soma,  &c.  But 
of  course  the  essential  part  of  the  process  had  been  com- 

1  For  the  suggested  etymologies  of  the  word  Indra  see  Ch.  III.        v 

2  Athenseus,  ii.  42.     Cf.  also  the  Zei/s  MyXctxrios  of  Paros  and  Corcyra ; 
Boeckh,  Cm-pus  In.  Gr.  ii.  1870,  2418 ;  and  Maury,  Rel.  de  la  Grece,  i.  63. 


48  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

pleted  before  any  one  of  the  Aryan  creeds  had  emerged 
into  the  light.  Yet  as  Dyaus,  Zeus,  Jupiter,  6sos,  deus^ 
Sanskrit  deva,  Persian  div  l  (dens),  are  all  from  the  same 
root,  we  can  scarcely  doubt  that  as  the  personal  names 
Zeus  and  Jupiter  were  derived  from  the  sky  god,  so  were 
likewise  the  abstract  or  general  terms  Osos,  deus, '  god.' 

It  is  just  as  if  at  first  the  Aryas  said  6  sky,  sky '  to  the 
object  of  their  adoration  ;  then  changing  the  word  a 
little,  they  called  their  god  Skoi,  and,  lastly,  invented  a 
third  abstract  word,  skey,  for  a  god.  I  assume  that  Skoi 
was  invented  before  skey,  Zeus  before  ilieos,  because  this 
seems  the  most  conformable  to  the  natural  process  of 
thought.  It  must  be  said,  however,  that  comparative 
philology  gives  us  no  information  upon  this  point.  The 
mere  absence  of  any  certain  indication  tells  us  this  much 
only,  that  the  one  change  came  treading  close  upon  the 
heels  of  the  othp.r. 

With  the  growth  of  the  personal  god  sprang  up  the 
distinctly  ethic  parts  of  the  creed — those  moral  laws 
which,  us  Mr.  Spencer  says,  are  subsequent  to  the  be- 
ginninq-  of  worship.  There  is  little  moral  teaching  in 
the  works  of  nature  :  the  thunder  and  the  lightning  are 
not  bound  by  the  laws  which  bind  us ;  the  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth ;  and  it  is  wasted  breath  to  cavil  at  the 
doings  of  these  things.  The  character,  therefore,  of  the 
early  gods  is  discovered  by  observing  what  they  are,  not 
by  considering  what  they  should  be. 

I  am  that  I  am,  and  they  that  level 
At  my  abuses  reckon  up  their  own. 

But  when  the  god  has  clothed  himself  in  human  guise  he 
ha,s  taken  therewith  the  responsibilities  of  human  nature ; 
he  must,  in  the  end,  conform  to  one  code  of  right  and 
wrong.  It  will  be  long,  no  doubt,  before  -he  does  this. 

1  The  fact  that  the  Persian  div  means  devil  is  a  matter  of  no  conse- 
quence here.  The  change  of  meaning,  in  fact,  came  chiefly  accidentally. 
That  at  least  is  Darmesteter's  view  (Avesta,  Introd.)  Others  attribute  it 
to  the  reforming  spirit  of  Zoroastrianism. 


STRATA  OF  BELIEF.  49 

Zens  cannot,  if  he  wonld,  shake  off  his  former  nature. 
His  shameless  amours  were  innocent  when  he  was,  in  very 
fact,  the  heaven  which  impregnates  all  nature  by  its  fer- 
tilising rains.  All  the  race  of  men  are  sons  of  heaven  and 
earth,  so  all  are  born  of  Zeus.  Earth  has  many  names, 
being  not  uniform,  but  different  in  different  places;  so 
Zeus  has  many  wives. 

No  religion  which  we  shall  encounter  among  the  Aryan 
folk  has  stopped  short  before  it  reached  this  third  stage, 
that  of  practical  monotheism.  Each  one,  that  is  to  say, 
has  got  its  general  name  for  god.  But  phases  of  belief  are 
not  to  be  measured  by  the  mere  lapse  of  time,  no  more  than 
geological  strata  are  to  be  measured  by  their  distance 
from  the  centre  of  the  earth.  Some  primitive  formation 
may  lie  quite  near  the  surface,  side  by  side  with  another 
formation  which  is  of  yesterday.  Wherefore  along  with 
quite  modern  notions  on  religious  matters  we  may  trace 
the  forms  of  primitive  belief.  It  is  in  our  own  hand  which 
parts  of  the  science  we  choose  to  make  our  study. 

We  shall  find  examples  sufficient  of  all  the  early  phases 
of  religious  growth  in  the  creeds  of  the  Aryan  peoples ; 
and,  what  is  better,  we  may  study  these  phases  not  as 
petrified  remains,  but  in  a  continual  process  of  growth 
and  change.  Just  as  in  Highland  or  in  Irish  cottages, 
among  the  fishermen's  huts  of  Brittany,  or  in  the  Russian 
mir,  or  among  the  peasants  of  Greece,  we  may  listen  to 
stories  whose  prototypes  were  told  long  centuries  agone 
upon  the  banks  of  the  Oxus  and  the  Jaxartes  by  the  remote 
fore-elders  of  our  race,  so  among  the  same  people  of  to- 
day we  shall  detect  the  signs  of  a  creed  which  the  more 
enlightened  among  those  far-off  Aryas  were  already  be- 
ginning to  leave  behind.  The  countryman  who  conies  to 
his  well-dressing,  or  dances  round  his  may-pole,  pays 
ancestral  vows  to  the  power  of  tree  and  stream.  He 
cherishes  his  piece  of  wood  or  scrap  of  linen  as  zealously 
as  the  African  his  gri-gri,  though  he  may  call  the  one  a 
piece  of  the  true  Cross  and  the  other  a  fragment  of  the 

E 


50  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

linen  napkin ;  he  worships  his  misshapen  images  and  his 
Black  Virgin  in  the  same  spirit  whereby  the  ancient  Greek 
held  sacred  his  Black  Demeter,  his  Ephesian  Artemis,  and 
thought  them  more  worthy  of  honour  than  the  finest  ex- 
amples of  Greek  art.  Such  an  one  as  he  is  our  best  friend 
when  we  want  to  tread  in  the  ways  of  a  past  belief.  As 
we  see  in  his  mind  the  alternations  between  superstition 
and  something  higher  than  superstition,  so  we  believe  that 
in  him  the  race  renews  its  ancient  conflict,  its  struggles 
and  questionings,  before  the  slow  advance  of  thought ;  and 
if  his  better  instincts  gain  the  day,  then  the  victory  of  all 
humanity  is  won  once  more. 

There  is  one  other  point  which  we  must  touch  upon  in 
enumerating  the  motive  causes  of  belief — touch  upon,  but 
110  more.  All  beliefs  have  had  their  origin  in  sensation, 
but  those  sensations  have  been  most  efficient  which  have 
called  forth  most  of  the  inward  response,  which  have  given 
rise  to  the  strongest  emotion.  Emotion,  in  truth,  is  so 
much  at  the  root  of  all  worship  that  a  kind  of  emotional 
worship  (or  ritual)  seems  often  to  precede  any  definite  form 
of  creed.  Men  worship  they  know  not  what.  The  current 
of  human  thought  and  feeling  does  not  run  smoothly<| 
men  are  subject  to  moments  of  ecstasy  when,  without 
knowing  why,  they  obey  an  influence  from  outside  them 
which  they  cannot  gauge.  Tennent,  in  his  description  of 
that  degraded  race  of  Ceylon  the  Veddahs,1  after  telling 
us  that  they  have  no  knowledge  of  a  god  nor  of  a  future 
state,  no  idols  nor  temples,  yet  goes  on  to  give  an  account 
of  a  ceremony  practised  among  them  which,  in  the  proper 

1  Tennent's  Ceylon,  ii.  437.  The  Veddahs,  when  Tennent  saw  them, 
were  divided  into  three  different  classes,  the  rock  Veddahs,  the  village 
Veddahs,  and  the  coast  Veddahs,  of  whom  the  first  onjy  presented  something 
like  an  image  of  primitive  life.  They,  as  the  name  implies,  lived  in  caves 
or  beneath  trees,  never  in  houses.  I  do  not  know  whether  they  were  really 
so  primitive  a  race  as  he  supposes —whether,  I  mean,  their  culture  may  not 
have  declined.  This  is  always  the  point  difficult  to  decide  about  savage 
races. 


INFLUENCE  OF  THE  PASSIONS.  51 


sense  of  the  word,  we  may  call  religious.  It  was  a  wild 
dance  executed  by  one  who  professed  to  drive  out  disease, 
and  who  must  have  thought  by  this  performance  to  gain 
some  supernatural  power  or  a  kind  of  inspiration.  '  The 
dance,5  says  Sir  E.  Tennent,  (  is  executed  in  front  of  an 
offering  of  something  eatable  placed  on  a  tripod  on  sticks. 
The  dancer  has  his  head  and  girdle  decorated  with  green 
leaves.  At  first  he  shuffles  with  his  feet  to  a  plaintive 
air,  but  by  degrees  he  works  himself  into  a  state  of  great 
excitement  and  action,  accompanied  by  moans  and  screams, 
and  during  this  paroxysm  he  professes  to  be  inspired  with 
instruction  for  the  curing  of  the  patient.'  The  description 
of  the  Veddah  dance  might  be  transcribed  for  that  of  any 
Oriental  darweesh  or  fakeer;  it  would  not  be  much  mis- 
placed if  it  were  applied  to  the  orgies  of  the  Bacchantes 
or  the  worshippers  of  the  Phrygian  Mother  Goddess. 
When  the  belief  in  any  dogmatic  creed — that  is,  in  any 
theory  of  the  world  and  of  God  and  man — seems  to  be 
breaking  up,  men  return  as  if  by  natural  instinct  to  these 
wild  forms  of  worship,  which  are  earlier  than  any  dogma. 
So  in  Greece  the  rites  of  Eleusis,  and  the  mystic  worship 
of  Isis  in  Rome,  outlived  the  genuine  belief  in  the  Greek 
and  Roman  divinities;  and  when  men  felt  the  creed  of 
mediaeval  Christendom  trembling  beneath  their  feet,  they 
too  broke  out  into  like  orgies  of  emotion.  Such  were  those 
which  swept  over  Europe  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
processions  of  penitents,  of  flagellants,  and  the  strange 
Dance  of  Death. 

All  this  shows  how  much  worship  is  an  affair  of  in- 
stinct. Certain  excitements  are  more  especially  allied  to 
strong  emotion  ;  and  foremost  among  all  these  we  must 
place  the  incitement  of  love  and  wine ;  wherefore  we  need 
not  be  surprised  if  these  indulgences  play  a  great  part  in 
every  primitive  creed.  Indeed,  as  ecstasies  are  earlier 
than  pantheons — though  not,  I  suppose,  earlier  than  any 
sense  of  supernatural  existence — it  might  seem  as  if 
Phallic  and  Bacchic  worship  were  more  essential  than  any 

K  2 


52  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

other  part  of  the  early  religion.  What  are  degrading  uses 
for  a  people  at  all  advanced  in  culture  are  not  so  for  the 
lowest  of  mankind ;  and,  were  the  subject  suitable  for  dis- 
cussion here,  it  would  be  easy  to  show  that  these  indul- 
gences, as  they  are  the  main  authors  of  a  formulated 
worship,  and  so  one  may  say  of  religion,  are  likewise  great 
instigators  to  the  growth  of  morality.  '\sp6s^  holy,  is  from 
a  root  which  means  to  agitate;  and  if  Eros  be,  as  some 
say,  the  same  with  Hermes,  he  is  a  god  of  agitation,  of 
rapid  motion,  as  well  as  of  love.  The  saying  of  a  Papuan 
Islander  (quoted  by  Mr.  Spencer)  suggests  the  origin  of 
the  worship  of  the  vine.  When  spoken  to  concerning 
God  he  replied,  *  Then  this  god  is  certainly  your  arrack, 
for  I  never  feel  so  happy  as  when  I  have  had  my  fill  of 
that.5 

Wherefore  all  through  the  history  of  belief  we  shall 
find  one  or  both  of  these  two  gods — the  god  of  love  or 
th.e  god  of  wine — possessing  a  mighty  power.  For  one 
class  of  people  and  for  one  climate  the  one  indulgence,  for 
other  sorts  the  other.  Aphrodite  for  the  southern  Greeks 
and  the  Greeks  of  the  islands,  and  for  the  Asiatic  people  of 
warm  Semitic  blood.  Dionysus  for  Thrace  and  the  shep- 
herds of  the  north,  and  chiefly  too  for  the  Aryan  Indian  l 
.and  Persian.2  Wine  for  the  German,3  love  for  the  Celt.4 
'  For  beauty  and  amorousness,  the  sons  of  Gaedhil.' 

This  part  of  the  history  of  religion  needs  only  to  be 
hinted  at  here.  It  is  not  a  subject  suitable  for  a  popular 
treatise.  Moreover,  it  has  little  direct  bearing  upon  the 
subjects  of  the  following  chapters,  which  are  not,  as  a  rule, 
concerned  with  creeds  in  their  emotional  aspect. 

1  The  place  which  is  occupied  in  the  Vedic  ritual  by  the  intoxicating 
plant  soma  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  this. 

2  Herod,  i.  134. 

3  See  Tacitus,  Germ.   22.     The   custom   of    deliberating  when   drunk, 
common  to  Persians  and  Germans,  arose  no  doubt  from  a  belief  in  the  in- 
spiration of  the  vine. 

4  Cf .  Diodorus  Sic.  v. ;  Strabo,  iv. ;  Athen.  xiii.  8. 


U  JN  IVJ^JA^i-JL  : 


ARYAN  FETICH  WORSHIP.  53 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  EAELY  GROWTH  OP  BELIEF. 

HAVING  now  dealt  with  and  done  with  (for  the  rest  of  the 
present  volume)  a  preliminary  psychological  investigation 
into  the  nature  of  belief,  we  may  turn — all  argument  and 
discussion  being  for  the  future  laid  aside—  to  the  actual 
phases  of  it  selected  for  study  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  an 
enquiry  which  is  of  a  strictly  historical  kind.  In  the  last 
chapter  we  saw  that  human  thought  in  this  matter  of 
belief  might  be  considered  as  passing  through  three 
important  stages.  The  first  is  the  fetich- worshipping 
stage,  when  man's  thoughts  are  concentrated  purely  upon 
visible  concrete  substances.  The  second  we  called  the 
nature-worshipping  stage.  In  it  the  objects  of  belief  are 
still  external  and  sensible,  but  they  are  also,  in  a  certain 
degree,  generalised,  and  are  not  often  tangible.  The 
third  is  the  anthropomorphic  or  ethical  stage,  when  the 
divinity  is  conceived  as  a  being  like  .mankind,  and  the 
ethical  qualities  of  that  being  have  to  be  taken  fully 
into  account.  This  third  condition  of  belief  lies  quite 
beyond  the  sphere  of  the  present  enquiry. 

The  first  condition — that  of  fetichism— might  likewise 
be  thought  outside*  our  studies,  seeing  that  none  of  the 
Indo-European  creeds,  of  which  we  have  any  cognisance, 
are  found  in  that  primitive  condition.  But  yet  we  know, 
not  by  theory  only  but  by  a  hundred  proofs,  that  our  fore- 
fathers have  been  in  the  fetich-worshipping  phase ;  and, 
therefore,  the  traces  of  fetich  worship  among  the  Indo- 
European  races  cannot  be  altogether  left  out  of  account. 
The  proofs  of  that  pre-existing  state  are  still  visible,  and 


54  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  later  forms  of  Aryan 
creeds  have  been  uninfluenced  bj  these  foregone  expe- 
periences.  We  have,  therefore,  in  this  chapter  to  note 
some  of  the  traces  of  fetichism  in  the  Aryan  creeds ;  and, 
having  glanced  at  these,  to  mark,  where  we  can,  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  that  fetich  worship  developed  into  the 
worship  of  nature  in  her  less  material  shapes. 

I  need  not  revive  the  discussion  raised  in  the  last 
chapter  over  the  various  uses  of  the  word  fetichism,  nor 
repeat  the  distinction  which  was  there  drawn  between  that 
fetichism  which  is  a  distinct  phase  of  belief  and  fetichism 
which  is  thaumaturgic  merely,  and  which  may  coexist 
with  widely  different  creeds.  Fetichism  which  is  really 
primitive  chooses  for  worship  only  the  greater  and  more 
imposing  objects  of  sight  and  sense.  The  gods  of  the 
early  world  are  the  rock  and  the  mountain,  the  tree,  the 
river,  the  sea.1  Lesser  fetiches  get  their  sacredness  from 
the  greater — a  stone  from  the  mountain  ;  a  stump,  or 
block,  or  stick,  from  the  tree. 

Tennent,  we  noticed,  after  assuring  us  that  the 
Veddahs  had  no  religion,  no  knowledge  of  a  god  or  of  a 
future  state,  yet  went  on  to  describe  the  dance  of  the 
medicine  man,  which,  was  certainly  of  a  ritualistic  cha- 
racter. The  charmer  seemed  to  invoke  some  kind  of 
inspiration  in  order  to  drive  out  disease.  During  the  per- 
formance of  his  dance  he  was  girt,  we  were  told,  with 
branches  about  the  head  and  loins.  This  is  almost  the  only 
part  of  the  ritual  observance  which  is  given  in  detail.  Is 
it  too  much  to  assume  that  these  leaves  and  branches  were 
fragments  from  the  Veddah's  fetich  tree,  and  that  the 
medicine  man  deemed  that  they  helped  him  to  gain  his 
inspiration  ?  The  use  of  these  fragments  was,  in  that  case, 
certainly  thaumaturgic ;  but  it  points  directly  to  a  belief 
which  lay  behind. 

1  In  fact,  the  sea,  as  was  said  in  the  first  chapter,  is  at  first  thought  of 
only  as  a  mighty  river.  Wherefore  we  get,  as  the  three  great  fetichisms  of 
the  world,  tree,  river,  and  mountain  worship. 


TREE  GODS.  55 

As  the  home  of  man  must  first  be  found  in  the  caves, 
or  beneath  the  shelter  of  a  mountain,  or  under  the  branches 
of  a  tree,  I  can  imagine  the  tree  and  mountain  fetiches  to 
have  been  the  most  primitive  of  all. 

In  the  last  chapter  I  said  that  the  original  man  might 
be  credited  with  any  goodliness  of  outward  form,  but  that 
his  intelligence  must  be  supposed  the  most  limited  con- 
ceivable. In  reality  we  know  that  man's  body  is  stunted 
and  deformed  when  his  mind  and  spirit  are  so  ;  and  that 
we  must  think  of  our  earliest  ancestors  as  being  not  very 
far  (at  least)  removed  from  the  brutes,  herding  together 
in  woods  and  caves,  gleaning  a  precarious  subsistence 
from  roots  and  berries  and  wild  fruits,  and  what  of  game 
they  could  kill  with  their  rude  weapons  ;  in  constant  dread 
of  the  fiercer  beasts  of  the  forest,  and  always  at  war  with 
them ;  never  stirring  far  from  the  common  home,  ignora.nt 
of  all  things  beyond  that  narrow  bound,  fearful  always, 
and,  through  fear,  credulous  especially  concerning  things 
remote.  When  man  became  first  conscious  of  himself  he 
knew  himself  a  social  being.  Marriage  was  not,  but  there 
was  a  tribal  life ;  and  we  can  picture  this  first  small  em- 
bryo of  future  commonwealths  forming  itself  under  a 
tree.  Its  branches  are  the  resting-place  at  night;  and, 
when  the  members  of  the  tribe  have  separated  during  the 
day  in  search  of  food,  the  tree  is  the  rendezvous  for  their 
evening  return.  Their  first  approach  toward  house- 
building is  to  pull  down  some  branches  as  a  screen  against 
wind  and  rain ;  these  they  fasten  into  the  earth,  wattling 
other  dead  branches  through  them,  and  a  kind  of  .hut  is 
made.1 

Certain  it  is  that,  among  people  who  live  in  woody 
lands,  we  find  long  continuing  the  habit  of  using  a  tree 
trunk  for  the  main  pillar  of  the  house,  of  building  cir- 
cular walls  round  that  tree,  and  sloping  the  roof  down 

1  The  picture  with  which  M.  Violet-le-Duc  begins  his  Habitations  of 
Men  in  all  Ages,  though  fanciful,  is  surely  not  pure  imagination.  Some 
such  beginning  of  the  tree  house  must  have  occurred. 


56  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

to  them  from  it.  Of  such  kind  was  the  house  of  our 
northern  ancestors.  Those  who  have  read  the  saga  of 
Volsung  will  remember  how,  when  that  king  was  enter- 
taining the  Goths  in  his  palace,  came  in  the  god  Odhinn, 
likened  to  an  old  man,  and  how  he  left  sticking  in  the 
branstock,  the  tree  which  supported  the  roof  of  the  palace, 
the  famous  sword  Gram,  so  fruitful  a  source  of  sorrow  in 
after  years.  In  the  elder  Edda,  Brynhild  hails  Sigurd 
with  the  title  'brynpings  apaldr,'  literally  apple  tree  of 
war,1  using  the  term  as  synonymous  with  pillar  of  war — a 
chance  phrase  which  shows  how  universal  was  the  use  of 
trees  in  the  way  I  have  described.  Nor  was  that  use  con- 
fined to  the  German  races,  though  it  was  most  conspicuous 
among  them.  There  must  certainly  be  an  allusion  to  the 
same  habit  of  building — grown  old-fashioned  and  mis- 
understood in  Homer's  day — in  that  description  of  the 
wonderful  chamber  and  bed  of  Odysseus,  whose  secret  he 
and  Penelope  only  knew.  We  remember  how,  when  the 
hero  had  come  to  his  house,  and  his  wife  still  hesitated  to 
recognise  him,  he  bade  her  try  him  by  questions,  and 
Penelope  spoke  concerning  a  certain  room  and  a  certain 
bed  in  the  well-wrought  chamber  which  Od}rsseus  him- 
self had  made.  Then  the  hero  said,  '  No  living  mortal 
among  men,  strong  in  youth  though  he  were,  could  well 
remove  it,  for  a  wonder  bides  in  that  well-made  bed. 
There  was  a  thick-leaved  olive  tree  in  the  court,  vigorous, 
flourishing.  It  was  thick  as  the  pillar  of  a  house.  And 
round  this  I  built  a  chamber,  finishing  it  with  close- 
fitting  stones,  and  roofing  it  above.  .  .  .  And  I  made 
smooth  the  trunk  with  brass,  right  well  and  masterly,  and 
planed  it  with  a  plane,  working  it  into  a  bed-post.  And 
from  this  I  made  a  bed,  polishing  it  all  brightly  with  gold 
and  ivory.  .  .  .' 2  This  is  the  description  of  a  tree-built 

1  Sigrdrifiimdl,  5.    It  does  not  take  away  from  the  significance  of  this 
phrase  that  apple  trees  were  new  things  to  the  Norsemen  when  the  above 
Eddaic  song  was  written. 

2  Od.  xxiii.  187  sqq. 


THE  WORLD   TREE.  57 

house.  But  in  this  case  the  ancient  forms  of  building  had 
become  overlaid  with  other  uses  :  the  tree  trunk  no  longer 
stood  simple  and  bare ;  it  was  hidden  in  brass,  and  polished 
smooth  like  a  pillar. 

All  this  is  mere  prosaic  fact ;  but  soon  we  pass  on  to 
the  region  of  belief  and  mythology.  The  -Norseman  on 
the  image  of  his  own  house  fashioned  his  picture  of  the 
entire  world.  The  earth,  with  the  heaven  for  a  roof,  was, 
to  him,  but  a  mighty  chamber,  and  likewise  had  its  great 
supporting  tree,  passing  through  the  midst  and  branching 
far  upward  among  the  clouds.  This  was  the  mythical  ash 
called  Yggdrasill,  Odhinn's  ash.  '  It  is  of  all  trees  the 
greatest  and  the  best.  Its  branches  spread  over  all  this 
world  of  ours  and  over  heaven.  Three  roots  sustain  it,  and 
wide  apart  they  stand ;  for  one  is  among  the  ^Esir  (the 
gods),  and  another  among  the  Hrimthursar  (frost  giants), 
where  once  lay  the  chasm  of  chasms ;  the  third  is  above 
Nifl-hel  (Mist-hell).'  So  speaks  the  younger  Edda;1  and 
the  elder  in  still  more  beautiful  language,  but  to  the  same 
effect : — 

I  know  an  ash  standing  Yggdrasill  bight, 

A  lofty  tree  laved  with  limpid  water  ; 

Thence  come  the  dews  into  the  dales  that  fall ; 

Green  stands  it  ever  over  Fate's  fountain.2 

Deep  down  are  the  roots  of  Yggdrasill  in  gloomy 
Nifl-hel,  the  Northern  Tartarus ;  and  yet  from  under 
these  roots  wells  up  the  fountain  of  life.  In  obedience,  no 
doubt,  to  the  same  original  belief  in  an  earth-supporting 
tree  do  we  read  in  classical  mythology  of  the  mystical  oak 
($7770$)  of  Dodona,  which  had  its  roots  in  Tartarus,3  while 

1  Edda  Snorra,  D.  15.     Pn  the  worship  of  trees  by  the  Scandinavians 
see  the  passage  quoted  from  Adam  of  Bremen  in  Ch.  VII.     And  compare 
with  that  (for  other  heathen  people)  what  is  said  in  Zonoras,  Annal.  3 ; 
Leon  Isaur.  82. 

2  Voluspa,  19.     On  the  Teutonic  earth  tree  see   Kuhn,  Herabk.  des 
Fevers,  118-137  ;  Windischmann,  Zor.  St.  165-177 ;  Mannhardt,  Germ.  Myth. 
641-671 ;  and  Kuhn's  Zcitschr.f.  verg.  Sp.  xv.  93  sqq. 

8  Schol.  ad  Virg.  Georg.  ii.  291. 


58  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

at  the  roots  of  this  same  tree  there  was  likewise  a  magic 
fountain,  which  by  its  murmurings  gave  forth  the 
oracles  of  Zeus.  Yggdrasill  stood  ever  green  over  Fate's 
fountain ;  this  oak  of  Dodona  never  changed  nor  shed  its 
leaves. 

In  such  cases  as  these,  because  the  people  have 
advanced  far  from  primitive  thought,  mythology  and 
experience,  the  real  and  the  ideal,  are  kept  separate. 
But  to  savage  men  it  may  well  seem  that  the  tree  which 
is  his  home  does  touch  the  sky  and  hold  it  up.  The 
Maoris  have  a  tale  how  that  the  earth  and  sky  were  once 
so  closely  embracing  that  the  children  whom  they  had 
begotten  found  no  room  to  live ;  how  those  took  counsel 
together  by  what  means  they  might  separate  their  two 
parents,  and  how  the  first  tree — Tanemahuta,1  the  father 
of  trees — accomplished  this  feat  by  pressing  continually 
upwards,  until  with  great  pain  he  had  rent  apart  the  sky 
and  earth.  An  idea  like  this  is  the  origin  of  the  mythical 
earth  tree. 

It  has  often  been  noted  how  man,  alone  among  all  the 
animals,  has  the  power  of  gazing  upward  to  heaven,  while 
the  rest  of  moving  things  have  their  faces  bent  ever 
towards  the  earth.  This  faculty — like  our  sense  of 
morality,  our  sense  of  God — came  to  us  not  all  at  once, 
but  gradually  through  lapse  of  time.  Savages  are  said 
scarcely  ever  to  raise  their  eyes,  and  their  heads  are 
naturally  inclined  with  a  downward  gaze,  so  that  it  must 
be  an  effort  for  them  to  look  at  the  sky  and  the  heavenly 
bodies.  Primeval  man  lived  upon  roots  and  berries,  or  011 
the  lesser  animals  and  the  vermin  which  he  gathered  from 
the  soil,  and  so  habit  as  well  as  nature  kept  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  ground.  We  need  not  therefore  wonder  if, 
in  their  half-glances  upward,  our  forefathers  had  not 
leisure  to  observe  that  the  tree-top  was  not  really  close 
against  the  sky,  and  that  what  childish  ignorance  still 

1  Sir  George  Grey,  Polynesian  Myth.  pp.  1-4. 


SACRED  BIRDS.  59 


fancies  !  was  more  certainly  believed  by  them.  They  may 
well  have  deemed  that  the  upper  branches  hid  them- 
selves in  infinitely  remote  ethereal  regions.  If  it  be  true 
that  '  high '  is  the  word  most  expressive  of  moral  perfec- 
tion, we  are  not  at  liberty  to  doubt  that  with  such  upward 
gazes  as  primitive  man  could  take  there  went  a  dim  sense 
of  elevation  of  mind  and  character,  high  instincts  which 
his  mortal  nature  could  only  half  understand. 

Man  abode  on  the  ground,  beneath  the  tree-shade,  or 
in  the  tree's  lower  branches ;  the  denizens  of  the  upper 
regions  were  the  birds.  These  last  must  therefore,  very 
early  in  the  history  of  belief,  have  seemed  wonderfully 
sacred  and  wise.  Before  man  had  advanced  far  enough 
to  worship  the  heaven  itself  or  the  heavenly  bodies,  while 
he  was  still  bound  to  a  narrow  phase  of  belief,  birds 
became  expressive  to  his  mind  of  height,  and  of  intimacy 
with  those  far-off  branches  of  the  tree  or  with  that 
unsearched  mountain  summit  which  were  then  his 
heaven.  Later  on,  when  the  gods  had  become  celestial, 
and,  leaving  the  earth,  had  gone  to  dwell  in  the  heaven 
itself,  the  birds  still  were  seen  flying  thither.  The 
worship  of  birds  as  divine  existences,  therefore,  belongs 
of  right  to  men  of  the  prime,  before  statues  were  carved 
or  shrines  were  built.  *  No  need  to  raise  for  them  temples 
of  stone  nor  doorways  witli  golden  doors ;  for  they  in 
fruit  trees  and  dark  oak  shall  dwell,  and  in  the  olive  tree 
receive  our  vows.' 2 

When  the  birds  ceased  to  be  divinities  they  remained 
still  the  best  diviners,  for  they,  it  was  thought,  shared 
most  intimately  in  the  counsels  of  the  gods,  and  were  the 

1  I  remember,  I  remember 

The  fir  trees  dark  and  high: 

I  used  to  think  their  slender  tops 

Were  close  against  the  sky. 

It  was  a  childish  ignorance  ; 

But  now  'tis  little  joy 
To  know  I'm  further  off  from  heaven 

Than,  when  I  was  a  boy. — HOOD. 
»  Aristoph.  Aves,  615,  &c. 


60  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

most  trustworthy  of  omens.  Each  of  the  greater  gods 
among  the  Greeks  had  his  own  special  bird,  which  he  sent 
on  missions  of  a  prophetic  nature.  From  Zeus  came  aii 
eagle,  from  Apollo  a  hawk,  and  from  Athene  a  crane ;  l 
Aphrodite  had  her  doves.  It  was,  with  the  Greeks,  the 
very  acme  of  profanity  to. fright  away  the  denizens  of  a 
sacred  enclosure.2  With  the  Germans  and  the  Celts 
divination  from  birds  was  as  common  as  with  the  Greeks 
and  Eomans.  Odhinii  (or  Wuotan)  had  his  two  hawks  or 
ravens  whirling  round  his  throne;  and  every  morning 
they  flew  '  earth's  fields  over ' 3  to  watch  the  ways  of  men. 
We  also  know  that  among  the  Norsemen  it  was  the 
greatest  gift  of  prophecy  to  understand  the  language  of 
birds — though  a  man  might  sometimes  wish  he  had  not 
known  it ;  for  they  told  of  the  future,  its  evil  as  well  as 
its  good.  In  one  of  the  Yolsung  lays  of  the  elder  Edda 
there  is  a  beautiful  passage  which  tells  how  Sigurd,  when 
he  had  eaten  Fafnir's  heart,  had  his  ears  opened  in  this 
wise,  and  heard  the  eagles  above  telling  one  another  of 
his  own  deeds,  and  what  would  be  his  end.4 

The  4  wise  women  '  of  many  different  systems  of  mytho- 
logy seem  to  possess  in  common  the  gift  of  being  able  to 
change  themselves  into  birds.  Perhaps  the  more  im- 
mediate prototypes  of  the  angels  of  mediaeval  Christianity 
were  the  maidens  of  Odhinn,5  at  once  amazons  and 
prophetesses,  who  were  called  Valkyriur  (Walachuriun). 
They  were  likewise  called  swan  maidens,  because  they  took 
sometimes  the  form  of  swans.  In  the  Bible  the  Spirit  of 
God  Himself,  when  it  becomes  visible  to  man,  appears  in 
the  shape  of  a  dove. 

The  worship  of  birds  is  of  all  forms  of  animal  worship 
the  most  exalted  and  spiritual,  because  it  has  to  do  with 

1  Homer,  passim,  esp.  11.  x.  274  ;  xii.  200. 

2  Herod,  i.  159.  »  Grimnismal,  20. 

4  Fafnismal,  31  to  end. 

5  I  do  not  mean  their  prototypes  in  art,  but  in  popular  belief,  at  any 
rate    in  northern   Europe.     Concerning  these   Valkyriur,  see   Chs.    VII. 
and  X. 


PROPHETIC  POWEK  OF  FETICH.  61 

regions  remotest  from  common  earth.  This  is  why  the 
holy  birds  linger  long  in  late  forms  of  belief,  and  survive 
generally  as  the  symbol  of  those  gods-and  goddesses  whose 
proper  dwelling-place  is  the  heaven.  A  bird,  for  instance, 
would  come  appropriately  from  Zeus,  or  Athene,  or  Apollo, 
the  sky,  the  air,  the  sun,  or  from  Odhinn,  the  storm  wind, 
but  less  appropriately  from  Demeter,  the  earth  goddess, 
or  from  Poseidon,  the  god  of  the  waves.  And  I  suppose 
that  when  we  encounter  the  figures  of  winged  beasts  in 
ivligious  art,  as  we  do  so  conspicuously  in  the  religious 
art  of  Assyria,  we  .are  to  take  it  that  the  gods  whom  the 
beasts  symbolise  have  been  raised  from  earth  to  heaven. 
These  mythic  beings  combine  the  majesty  of  the  beast 
chosen — the  courage  of  the  lion,  say,  or  the  strength  of  the 
bull,  or  the  swiftness  of  the  horse — with  the  spirituality 
and  special  sacredness  of  birds.  Such  winged  creatures 
are  not  unknown  to  Greek  art.1  They  have  made  their 
way  into  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews,  and  thence  into 
Christian  belief;  the  cherubim,  it  seems,  were  the  same 
as  the  Assyrian  and  Phoenician  griffin.2 

Seeing  that  birds  have  attributed  to  them  a  gift  of 
prophecy,  partly  in  virtue  of  the  antiquity  of  their  worship, 
it  is  natural  that  all  fetiches  should  be  themselves  oracular. 
Prophecy  belongs  to  the  region  of  magic,  and  magic  rites 
are  almost  always  a  survival  from  some  old  form  of  belief, 

1  E.g.  Pegasus.  The  griffin,  too,  is  tolerably  common  in  some  Greek  art. 
Both  come  through  Asiatic  influences.  Cf.  Layard,  Nineveh,  ii.  461,  for 
Pegasus,  and  for  the  griffin  next  note. 

-  I  mean  etymologically  the  same,  as  well  as  the  same  in  their  original 
representation.  Kuenen  supposes  that  the  cherubim  who  stood  upon  the 
ark  of  the  tabernacle  had  the  shape  of  griffins  (Rel.  of  I&rael,  i.  p.  280). 
The  cherubim  are,  he  says,  embodiments  of  the  clouds  ;  they  are,  therefore, 
essentially  the  same  as  the  Yalkyriur  of  the  North,  who,  I  say,  foreran  the 
Christian  angels  in  the  popular  belief  of  northern  Europe.  It  may  be  well 
to  add  that  the  double  eagle  which  in  Christian  art  was  designed  to  repre- 
sent the  double  greatness  of  the  Holy  Koman  Empire  (spiritual  and  material 
rule  combined  in  one,  or  perhaps  only  the  united  Empires  of  East  and 
West)  is  likewise  drawn  from  Eastern  iconography.  Texier,  Aide  Mineure ; 
also  A.  de  Longperier,  Revue  Arch.  O.  S.  vol.  ii.  p.  76.  The  monument 
bearing  representations  of  this  and  other  fabulous  winged  creatures  was 
appropriately  discovered  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Pteria. 


62  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  meaning  of  which,  has  been  forgotten,  and  the  use  in 
consequence  distorted.  The  earlier  gods,  which  were  near, 
and  visible,  and  tangible,  and  a  part  of  nature,  became  a 
natural  means  of  communication  between  man  and  the 
later  gods,  who  were  supernatural  and  unseen.  Wherefore 
the  power  of  divining  remained  with  the  tree  itself,  and 
with  the  mountain  and  the  river.  The  oracles  of  Zeus 
were  conveyed  by  the  whispering  leaves  of  the  oaks  of 
Dodona;  and  the  laurel  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  is  another 
instance  of  an  oracular  tree.  We  should  not  be  far  wrong 
in  supposing  that  the  fabulous  ash,  Yggdrasill,  was  magical 
in  this  way.  We  know,  at  any  rate,  that  the  wise  women 
of  the  North,  the  Norns,  lived  hard  by  one  of  the  roots  of 
this  tree  of  life.  The  divining  rod  has  inherited  its  qualities 
from  the  divining  tree. 

The  prophetic  powers  of  mountains  resided  generally 
in  their  caves.  The  wise  women,  or  witches,  of  heathen  and 
mediaeval  legend  had  their  homes  always  either  in  a  wood 
or  in  a  cave.1  Among  the  Romans  we  know  how  a  voice 
from  a  cave  used  to  bring  the  prophecy  of  the  sybil.2  It 
was  in  a  cave  or  cleft  between  two  steep  rocks  that  the 
Pythoness  received  her  divine  inspiration. 

Finally,  more  than  either  tree  or  mountain,  waters 
have  been  great  in  gifts  after  this  kind.  Rivers,  foun- 
tains, and  wells  have,  in  all  ages,  been  accounted  sacred 
and  prophetic.  From  our  wishmg-wells  back  to  the  foun- 
tain of  Urd,  from  which  the  Nornir  watered  the  roots  of 
Yggdrasill,  or  to  Mini's  well  (if  this  be  not  the  same),  whither 
Odhinn  went  to  buy  wisdom,  is  one  continuous  stream  of 
illustration  of  this  belief,  which  need  not  be  here  set  forth 
in  full.  That  the  notion  was  as  familiar  to  the  Greeks, 
the  fountain  of  Parnassus,  by  which  Apollo's  priestess 
stood,  the  poetic  inspiration  (jj,avrsla)  of  prophet  and  poet 
from  Parnassus  and  Helicon,  may  serve  to  remind  us. 

It  is  no  strained  imagination,  but  almost  a  statement 
of  sober  fact,  that  belief  so  common  among  the  nations, 
1  See  Chaps.  VII.  and  X,  2  ^n.  vi. 


DESCENT  FROM  TREES.  63 

bher  that  all  mankind  or  that  some  particular  races  cf  it 
were  descended  from  a  tree ;  for  it  is  certain  that  tribal 
life  very  often  began  under  one,  and  such  tribal  life  in  all 
probability  preceded  any  distinct  division  of  the  family ; 
it  preceded  marriage  rites  or  much  recognition  of  chil- 
dren by  their  parents.  When  at  last  the  tribe  began  to 
distinguish  itself  from  other  tribes — the  consciousness  of 

O 

the  ego,  as  in  all  cases,  arising  out  of  contact  with  the 
non-ego — its  members  had  to  assume  a  common  parentage. 
From  whom  9  From  whom  more  likely  than  from  the 
great  fetich  of  the  race,  so  much  longer-lived  than  man 
(nay,  perhaps  immortal ;  for  who  could  remember  when  it 
had  not  been  there  ?),  so  kind,  so  protecting  ;  surpassing  us 
in  size  and  strength,  even  as  a  god  surpasses  mortals  ? 
That  man  was  born  of  a  god  has  always  seemed  a  natural 
way  of  accounting  for  his  existence;  and  in  primitive 
times  there  was  no  god  beside  the  fetich.  Among  the 
Greeks  certain  families  kept  the  idea  of  a  tree  parentage ; 
the  Pelopidse,  for  example,  were  said  to  have  been  descended 
from  a  plane.  Among  the  Persians  the  Achsemenidao  be- 
lieved the  same  concerning  their  house.  Cadmus  was 
born  of  Myrrha  after  she  had  undergone  transformation 
into  a  tree.1  Even  Ares,  according  to  one  legend,  had  a 
like  descent.  Romulus  and  Remus  had  been  found  under 
the  famous  Ficus  ruminalis*  'In  the  legend  which  we  have 
received  it  is  in  this  instance  only  a  case  of  finding ;  but 
if  we  could  go  back  to  an  earlier  tradition,  we  should  pro- 
bably see  that  the  relation  between  the  mythical  twins 
and  the  tree  had  been  more  intimate.  The  origin  of  the 
Myrmidons  was  perhaps  really  of  the  same  kind.  Ovid 
relates  how  when  JEacus  had  prayed  to  Zeus  to  give  him 
a  new  race  of  men,  who  might  fill  the  place  of  a  nation 
destroyed  by  pestilence,  he  fell  asleep  beneath  a  tree.  As 
he  slept  he  thought  he  saw  myriads  of  ants  dropping 

1  Ovid,  Met.  x. 

2  According  to  tradition  the  twins  and  their  mother  were  cast  into  the 
Tiber,  the  former  in  a  cradle,  which  was  stranded  beneath  a  fig  tree — the 
Ficus  ruminalis — which  was  held  sacred  for  long  ages  afterwards 


64  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

from  the  branches  or  issuing-  from  the  roots ;  and  these, 
when  he  awoke,  had  changed  into  men  l  The  introduction 
of  the  ants  is,  I  suspect,  a  fanciful  later  addition.  And 
yet  the  myth,  as  it  now  stands,  not  ill  expresses  the  con- 
trast between  man  in  the  days  when  he  lived  beneath  the 
tree  or  hung  upon  its  branches,  and  nourished  himself 
partly  on  its  fruits — a  pygmy  compared  to  all  the  rest  of 
nature — and  that  later  humanity,  his  descendants,  which 
counted  in  its  ranks  such  a  race  of  heroes  as  Achilles  and 
his  comrades. 

In  other  myth  systems,  notably  in  the  Norse,  the  idea 
of  a  descent  from  the  tree  has  been  applied  to  the  whole 
human  race.  According  to  the  Edda,  all  mankind  are 
descended  from  Ask  and  Embla,  the  ash  and  the  elm.  The 
story  is  that  Odhinn  and  his  two  brothers  were  journeying 
over  the  earth,  when  they  found  these  two  stocks  '  void 
of  future,'  and  breathed  into  them  the  power  of  life. 

From  out  their  following  Spirit  they  owned  not, 

There  came  three  Sense  they  had  not, 

Mighty  and  merciful  Blood  nor  vigour, 

^Esir  to  our  home.  Nor  colour  fair. 

Tbey  fonnd  on  earth,  Spirit  gave  Odhinn, 

Almost  lifeless,  Thought  gave  Hoenir, 

Ask  and  Embla,  Blood  gave  Lodr 

Fntureless.  And  colour  fair.2 

The  following  story,  too,  I  find  in  mediaeval  legendary 
lore.  It  seems  to  spring  directly  from  the  myth  of  the 
Yggdrasill  tree  of  life  and  from  the  Ask  and  Embla  myth, 
though  there  may  be  other  Oriental  sources  for  it  which  I 
do  not  know.  The  Tree  of  Life,  says  a  trouvere  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  was,  a  thousand  years  after  the  sin  of 
the  first  man,  transplanted  from  the  garden  of  Eden  to 
the  garden  of  Abraham,  and  an  angel  came  from  heaven 
to  tell  the  patriarch  that  upon  this  tree  should  hang  the 
Redeemer  of  mankind.  But  first  from  the  same  tree  of 
life  Jesus  should  be  born,  and  in  the  following  wise.  First 
1  Met.  vii.  683.  «  Voluspa,  17,  18. 


TREE  OF  THE  TRIBE.  65 

was  to  be  born  a  knight,  Fanouel,1  who,  through  the  scent 
merely  of  the  flower  of  that  living  tree,  should  be 
engendered  in  the  womb  of  a  virgin  ;  and  this  knight, 
again,  without  knowing  woman,  should  give  birth  to  St. 
Anne,  the  mother  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  Both  these 
wonders  fell  out  as  they  were  foretold.  A  virgin  bore 
Fanouel  by  smelling  the  tree  ;  and  Fanouel,  having  once 
come  unawares  to  that  tree  of  life,  and  cut  a  fruit  from  it, 
wiped  his  knife  against  his  thigh,  in  which  he  inflicted  a 
slight  wound  and  thus  let  in  some  of  the  juice.  Presently 
his  thigh  began  to  swell,  and  eventually  St.  Anne  was 
born  therefrom.2 

So  from  all  these  instances  we  see  that  there  was  once 
a  fuller  meaning  than  metaphor  in  the  language  which 
spoke  of  the  roots  and  branches  of  a  family ;  or  in  such 
expressions  as  the  pathetic,  '  Ah,  woe,  beloved  shoot ! '  of 
Euripides. 

Even  when  the  literal  notion  of  the  descent  from  a 
tree  had  been  lost  sight  of,the  close  connection  between  the 
prosperity  of  the  tribe  and  the  life  of  its  fetich  was  often 
strictly  held.3  The  village  tree  of  the  German  races  was 
originally  a  tribal  tree,  with  whose  existence  the  life  of  the 
village  was  involved ;  and  when  we  read  of  Christian 
saints  and  confessors  that  they  made  a  point  of  cutting 
down  these  half-idols,  we  cannot  wonder  at  the  rage  they 
called  forth,  nor  that  they  often  paid  the  penalty  of  their 
courage.4 

Trees  of  the  same  kind  were  the  two  called  the 
patrician  and  the  plebeian,  which  stood  before  the  temple 
of  Quirinus  in  Koine,  and  whereof  we  are  told  the  folio  w- 

1  Also  called  Fanoiaix  in  the  poem.     The  name  of  the  poem  is  Notre 
Dame  Kte.  Marie.    It  is  taken  from  a  rhymed  Bible  of  the  thirteenth 
century. 

2  Leroux  de  Lincy,  Lc  Livre  des  Legendes,  p.  24. 

3  '  Bei  den  Romern  wie  jede  Kultusstatte,  jeder  Tempel  seinen  Gottes- 
baum,  so  hat  jeder  Staat,  jede  stadt,  jeder  Familiensitz,  jeder  Zweig  einer 
Familie  einen  solchen.' — K.  Boetticher,  JJaumhultus  dcr  Hcllenen  u.  Itomer, 
p.  20. 

4  See  Grimm,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  ch.  iv. 

P 


66  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

ing  story.  The  two  trees  were  myrtles  (sacred  to  Venus), 
as  signifying  the  amity  which  existed  between  the  two 
orders  of  society  of  which  the  city  was  composed ;  and  at 
first,  we  may  believe,  they  grew  up  side  by  side,  in  equal 
strength.  But  when  the  fathers  began  to  increase  their 
power  at  the  expense  of  the  plebs,  the  patrician  tree 
waxed  greater,  overgrowing  the  other,  which  seemed  to 
wither  beneath  its  hurtful  shade.  After  the  Marsian  war, 
however,  the  patrician  myrtle  grew  old,  its  vigour  returned 
to  the  tree  of  the  plebs,  and  the  power  of  the  Senate 
diminished  from  day  to  day.1 

To  that  from  which  all  races  sprang,  to  that  they  may 
again  return.  Wherefore  arises  that  common  superstition 
that  the  souls  of  the  dead  have  gone  to  inhabit  trees. 
Empedocles  says  that  there  are  two  destinies  for  the  souls 
of  highest  virtue — to  pass  either  into  trees  or  into  the 
bodies  of  lions.2  Philemon  and  Baucis  were  rewarded 
by  the  former  lot  for  their  charity  to  Zeus,  who  came  a 
poor  wanderer  to  their  house.  And  this  story  is  the  more 
worthy  of  remark  because  it  bears  no  inconsiderable 
resemblance  to  the  story  of  the  three  Norse  gods  wander- 
ing over  the  earth  and  finding  Ask  and  Embla,  from  whom 
they  created  mankind.3  Philemon  and  Baucis  lived  till 
extreme  old  age,  serving  in  the  temple  of  Jove,  and  then 
at  the  last,  both  together,  they  were  transformed  into 

trees.4 

Frond  ere  Philemona  Baucis, 

Baucida  conspexit  senior  frondere  Philemon. 

« 

'Yaleque, 

0  conjnx !  '  dixere  simul,  simul  abdita  texifc 
Ora  frutex. 

The  same   poem  relates  how,  to  the  prayer  "of  penitent 

»  Pliny,  H.  N.  2  .Elian,  ffigt.  Anim.  xii.  7. 

8  The'resemblance  between  the  classical  and  the  Northern  myths  appears 
the  closer  if  we  take  the  Rigsmdl  as  a  connecting  link  between  the  history 
of  Baucis  and  Philemon  and  the  verse  of  the  Voluspa  quoted  just  now. 

*  Met.  viii.  714. 


THE  MOUNTAIN  GOD.  67 


Myrrh  a,  the  gods  granted  that  she  should  be  turned  into 
a  tree.  Though  she  has  lost  understanding  with  her 
former  shape,  she  still  weeps,  and  the  drops  which  fall 
from  her  bark  (i.e.  the  myrrh)  preserve  the  story  of  their 
,  mistress,  so  that  she  will  be  forgotten  in  no  age  to  come.1 
Her  child  was  Cadmus.  How  the  same  myth  has  been 
preserved  and  repeated  in  after  ages,  and  has  survived  in 
the  greatest  poems  of  the  world,  needs  not  to  be  told  here. 
No  one  will  have  forgotten  Dante  in  hell  passing  through 
that  leafless  wood,  in  the  bark  of  every  tree  of  which  was 
imprisoned  the  soul  of  a  suicide.  Unwittingly,  from  one 
of  these  trees  he  plucked  a  little  twig.  Then  from  the 
wound  thus  made  (as  from  green  wood  burning)  came, 
with  bubbling,  steam  and  blood,  and  last  of  all  a  voice, 
which  was  the  voice  of  Pietro  delle  Vigne,  the  minister  of 
Frederick.  Tasso  and  our  Spenser  have  given  us  pictures 
founded  on  the  same  old-world  belief. 

What  has  been  here  sketched  out  concerning  tree 
worship  will  apply,  changing  what  should  be  changed,  to 
the  worship  of  mountains..  The  mountain  is  higher  than 
the  tree,  more  majestic  and  remote,  and  in  a  manner 
more  abstract.  It  is  of  the  two  the  less  fitted  to  be  the 
parent  of  a  race  or  tribe  ;  and  we  do  not,  in  fact,  tind  so 
often  the  belief  in  a  descent  from  mountains  as  in  a 
descent  from  either  trees  or  rivers.  Mountain  worship  is, 
in  most  respects,  an  advance  on  tree  worship ;  for  when,  to 
the  growing  intelligence  of  mankind,  the  tree  becomes 
relatively  small,  the  high  hill  is  still  immeasurable  and 
has  its  head  buried  in  the  clouds.  And  from  this  cause 
mountain  worship  is  more  often  to  be  seen  persisting  into 
later  phase.s  of  belief,  and  is  less  characteristic  of  the 
earlier  ones.  Zeus  may,  in  times  relatively  far  advanced, 
still  be  worshipped  in  the  actual  form  of  a  mountain.2 

Of   the    oracular    character    which    belongs    to    the 
mountain  fetich  I  have   already  spoken.      Some   of  the 
most  venerable  and  ancient  temples  among  the  Greeks 
»  Met.  xx.  4,  &c.  2  See  Ch.  IV. 

F  2 


68  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

were  situate  in  a  deep  gorge  between  high  rocks,  as,  for 
example,  the  shrine  of  Apollo  at  Tempe  and  the  temple 
of  Demeter  at  Eleusis.  The  gods  themselves,  when  they 
were  not  throned  high  on  the  mountain  summits,  as  on 
Olympus,  often  found  a  dwelling-place  in  its  deep  clefts.1 

The  river  fetich  has  some  special  qualities  and  asso- 
ciations which  I  shall  speak  of  presently.  It  has  others 
which  it  shares  with  the  tree  fetich.  Among  the  latter  is 
its  position  as  a  progenitor,  and  of  this  belief  we  have  the 
most  conspicuous  examples  in  Greek  mythology.  In 
truth,  worship  of  the  river  and  mountain  fetiches  has 
found  its  chief  partisans  in  Greece  and  in  Italy,  while  the 
cult  of  trees  was  especially  cl*aracteristic  of  the  Teuton 
and  the  Celt.2  The  nations  of  Northern  Europe  lived  in 
regions,  as  Tacitus  describes  them,  f  either  rugged  with 
forest  or  dank  with  marsh,3  but  the  Greeks  in  a  bright 
land  not  much  wooded.  Wherefore  a  difference  of  creeds 
followed  this  difference  of  surroundings.  In  Greek  mytho- 
logy Oceanus  is  found  to  have  many  of  the  attributes 
which  in  the  Norse  mythology  belonged  to  the  mythic 
world-tree  Yggdrasill.  It  corresponds  in  many  respects  to 
the  world  ash,  the  symbol  of  life  and  of  time,  and  to  that 
other  ash  (if  another  it  really  were)  from  which  the  human 
race  proceeded.  For  example,  Oceanus  was  the  beginning 
of  all  things,  the  parent  alike  of  gods  and  of  men.  He 
was  the  first  and  the  last,  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  life. 
The  etymology  of  the  name  Oceanus  seems  to"  show  that 
the  very  foundation  of  his  nature  was  as  a  primeval  exist- 
ence, a  forefather.4  Oceanus  was  the  parent  of  all  waters, 

•'  Cf.  II.  i.  495,  v.  753 ;  Hesiod.  Th.  113  (VT^XOS  oAtWoio). 

2  There  are  frequent  references  to   river   worship  in  Homer  (cf.  II. 
xi.  726,  xx. — a  council  of  the  gods  which  rivers  attend  :  ^xi.  130  ;  Oil.  v. 
446),  but,  so  far  as  I  remember,  none  to  the  worship  of  trees.     It  is  very 
probable  that  fountains  were  much  worshipped  by  the  Celts.     We  find  in 
the  Middle  Ages  numerous  ordinances  forbidding  this  form  of  paganism. 
See  Capitularies,  i.  tit.  64,  §  789,  c.  63,  and  viii.  tit.  326,  c.  21.    Leges  Luit- 
prandi,  ii.  tit.  38,  §  1.     Vita  Miff.  ii.  ]5. 

3  <  Aut  sylvis  horrida  aut  paludibus  fceda.'—  Germ.  5. 

4  See  Ch.  VI.  Ogyges. 


FETICH  ISM  AND  LOVE    OF  COUNTEY.  69 

the  encircler  of  the  world.1  He  included  in  his  circle  all 
living  nature,  for  beyond  this  river  lay  only  the  land  of 
darkness  and  of  death.2  Oceanus,  again,  was  complete  in 
himself,  and  so  for  ever  returning  upon  his  own  course.3 
Other  rivers  were  the  progenitors  of  special  families — 
Asopus,  Inachus.  A  descent  from  rivers  is  not  at  all 
uncommon  among  Homeric  heroes  :  witness  Asteropseus, 
whom  Achilles  slew  beside  Xanthus — '  he  was  the  son  of 
broad-flowing  Axios ' — and  Menesthios,  the  son  of  Sper- 
cheios,  and  others.4 

Fetichism  discharged  a  great  duty  in  that  it  first 
formed  the  patriotic  instincts,  by  giving  to  men  a  notion 
of fatherland  and  an  attachment  to  a  particular  soil.  The 
fetich  gods  could  not  be  moved,  and  in  the  worship  of 
them,  in  the  sense  of  safety  and  sacredness  which  they 
spread  like  an  aroma  round  one  spot,  there  was  found  just 
the  force  needed  to  awaken  a  sense  of  nationality  and  of 
fellowship  among  men.  The  value  of  a  safe,  protected' 
spot  must  be  great  in  proportion  as  all  other  places  are 
strange  and  fearful ;  by  the  fetich  worshipper  the  outer 
world  is  not  dreaded  only  on  account  of  its  visible 
dangers — for  the  wild  beasts  who  hover  round,  for  the 
savage  men  of  a  different  tribe  and  an  alien  creed  who 
may  be  near — it  is  likewise  ghost-haunted,  and  may  be  the 
home  of  evil  spirits  and  unseen  unfriendly  powers.  And 
so,  moved  by  this  fear,  all  those  who  are  akin  draw  near 
together.  It  has  often  been  noticed  how  the  sense  of 
kinship  among  nations  springs  more  from  a  common 
faith  than  from  any  other  tie ;  this  outweighs  the  bonds 
of  blood,  of  language,  and  of  country.  We  see  examples 
enough  of  this  even  now,  when  the  orthodox  Slav  is  the 
bitterest  enemy  of  the  Catholic  Slav,  when  the  Shiah 
Persian  or  Afghan  is  more  hateful  than  any  common  foe 
to  his  Sunni  brother.  It  was  well,  therefore,  that  at  first 

1  TL.  xiv.  246,  xxi.  196  ;  JEsch.  Prom.  636,  &c.  2  See  Ch.  VL 

•  tyoppoos.     11.  xviii.  399  ;  Od.  xx.  65. 

*  11.  xxi.  141,  &c. ;  xvi.  173. 


70  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  ties  of  country  and  of  kinship  and  of  creed  should  have 
been  inseparably  united. 

Greek  national  life  sprang  up  around  some  local  shrine. 
For  the  guard  of  the  temple  and  the  honour  of  the  god, 
towns  or  villages  entered  into  Amphictyonies — associa- 
tions of  the  neighbours  to  it — and  these  Amphictyonies 
in  time  grew  into  States.  'Only  one  form  existed  in 
ancient  Greece  for  the  combination  of  peoples — namely,  a 
common  religious  worship,  which  at  fixed  times  assembled 
a  number  round  a  generally  acknowledged  sanctuary,  and 
laid  upon  all  the  participators  in  it  the  obligation  of 
certain  common  principles.  Such  festivals — associations 
or  Amphictyonies — are  coeval  with  Greek  history,  or  may 
even  be  said  to  constitute  the  first  expression  of  a  common 
national  history.5 1  The  principle  of  the  Amphictyony  was 
conceived  in  the  genuine  spirit  of  fetichism  ;  for,  to  unen- 
lightened minds,  the  temple  itself  is  a  kind  of  fetich.  The 
temples  of  paganism  were,  as  an  orator  of  the  latter  days 
of  paganism  declared,  '  the  life  and  soul  of  the  country ; 2 
under  their  protection  the  peasant  planted  and  sowed ;  to 
their  guardianship  he  committed  his  wife  and  child.'  We 
can  guess,  then,  how  dear  in  times  far  more  ancient  than 
these  must  have  been  the  river  by  which  a  tribe  had  settled, 
the  mountain  in  whose  caves  they  lived,  or  the  tree  which 
sheltered  them. 

So  much  for  the  characteristics  of  fetichism  in  its 
prime.  A  hundred  more  examples  might  be  given 
of  the  worship  of  trees  and  rivers  and  hills,  and  of  the 
traces  of  such  worship  in  later  creeds.  But  the  main 
characteristics  of  the  faith  would  return  again  and  again, 
and  only  grow  wearisome  by  repetition.  Nevertheless, 
before  we  quite  leave  the  subject  we  have  to  notice  one 
peculiar  form  of  worship  which  seems  to  be  connected  with 
fetichism  and  more  peculiarly  with  the  cult  of  rivers. 

1  Curtius,  Hist,  of  Greece,  i.  111. 

2  Vvxb,  &  fiaffi\ev,  rots  aypols  ra  tepd.    Libanius  in  a  speech  to  Theodo- 
sius  on  behalf  of  the  ancient  temples. 


ANIMAL  WORSHIP.  71 

I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  a  discussion  concerning 
the  religious  significance  of  animal  worship,  taken  as  a 
whole.  The  origin  of  it  has  never  yet  been  satisfactorily 
explained,1  and  until  it  has  been  made  more  clear  we  are 
not  justified  in  adopting  arbitrary  theories  concerning  it. 
Some  peoples  have  furnished  themselves  with  elaborate 
reasons  for  their  worship  of  animals  :  they  have  made  them 
symbolical  of  moral  qualities,  or  even  of  some  natural  phe- 
nomena. Sekhet,  the  bright-eyed  cat  or  lioness  goddess 
of  the  Egyptians,  was  made  to  stand  for  the  sun,  or  else 
for  the  moon,  because  the  cat's  or  lioness'  eyes  shine  at 
night ;  the  eagle,  in  like  manner,  symbolised  the  sun.  Ex- 
planations like  these  have  always  been  given  by  people 
who  had  themselves  advanced  too  far  beyond  the  sphere  of 
animal  worship  to  understand  its  meaning.  Such  notions 
may  have  seemed  satisfactory  to  Egyptian  priests  in  the 
days  of  Herodotus;  they  cannot  possibly  seem  so  to  a 
student  of  the  history  of  belief  to-day.  Failing  some 
better  interpretation,  we  may  assume  that,  beside  that 
honour  which  was  paid  to  superiority  in  size  or  strength, 
the  reason  for  animal  worship  lay  in  some  human  feature 
or  quality — the  majesty  of  the.  lion,  the  walk  of  the  bear, 
the  human  cry  of  the  cat — suggesting  thus  the  doctrine 
of  the  migration  of  souls.  This  would  reserve  for  animals 
a  great  amount  of  reverence,  such  as  that  paid  to  dead 
ancestors,  though  this  would  still  fall  short  of  actual  wor- 
ship ;  and,  perhaps,  the  cult  of  animals  has  always  been 
rather  an  element  in  other  creeds  than  a  distinct  creed 
itself. 

From  other  kinds  of  animal  worship,  however,  the 
worship  of  the  serpent  stands  apart.  It  is  of  all  forms 
probably  the  widest  spread  and  most  deeply  rooted ;  and 
yet  its  origin  is,  of  all  perhaps,  the  hardest  to  understand. 
Fergusson  suggests  its  great  longevity  as  one  reason,  its 
deadly  power— both  mysterious  and  deadly— as  another. 

1  For  I  think,  as  I  have  said,  the  totem  theory  quite  insufficient  to 
explain  it ;  or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  it  is  too  sufficient  a  way. 


72  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

Tlie  first,  by  itself,  is  certainly  not  reason  enough  ;  besides, 
it  would  not  be  easy  for  man  to  ascertain  this  fact  without 
paying  close  attention  to  this  reptile,  which  would  be  in 
itself  peculiar.  And  the  objection  to  the  other  reason  is 
that  serpent  worship — as  Fergusson  admits  l — is  not  one 
which  is  strongly  marked  by  fear. 

For  my  own  part,  I  believe  in  this  one  instance  that 
the  use  of  the  animal  is  symbolical,  and  that  in  almost 
every  case  the  serpent  stands  for  the  river.  It  would,  of 
course,  be  impossible,  or  even  if  possible  unsuitable,  to 
produce  in  this  place  all  the  reasons  which  have  led  me  to 
such  an  opinion.  But  there  can  be  no  harm  if  we  turn 
aside  for  a  moment  to  glance  at  the  chief  among  them. 

The  river  of  rivers  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans  was  that 
great  Oceanus  of  which  I  spoke  just  now — the  earth- 
encircling  stream  which  flowed  between  the  world  of  men 
and  the  kingdom  of  Hades.2  The  belief  in  that  stream, 
as  we  shall  see  more  clearly  in  a  future  chapter,  was  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  classical  ancients,  but  was  shared 
in  by  all  the  members  of  the  Indo-European  family.  It 
has  been  already  said  more  than  once,  and  shown,  that 
the  most  primitive  belief  concerning  the  sea  is  that  it  is 
only  a  mighty  river ;  wherefore  it  .follows  that  if  in  any 
system  of  mythology  a  sea  is  found  in  the  place  which  a 
river  occupies  in  some  other  system,  the  myth  concerning 
the  sea  is  later  than  the  myth  concerning  the  stream. 
Now  in  the  creed  of  the  Teuton  races  we  find  generally 
th.it  instead  of  the  whole  of  man's  earth  being  surrounded 
by  a  river  like  Oceanus,  it  is  girt  in  '  by  a  wide  and  deep 
sea.'  'The  gods,'  says  the  younger  Edda,  '  made  a  vast 
sea,  and  in  the  midmost  thereof  fixed  the  earth.' 3  What, 
then,  we  are  tempted  to  ask,  has  become  of  the  river? 
Have  the  traces  of  that  earlier  myth  quite  disappeared  ? 

I  believe  that  that  river  has  been  transformed  into  the 
mid-earth  serpent  ('inrSgarSsormr'),  called  Jormungandr, 

1  Fergusson,  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship,  beginning. 
*  Od.  xi.,  &c.  3  Edda  Snorra,  D.  8. 


THE  SERPENT  JORMUNGANDR.  73 

who,  in  the  later  form  of  the  mythology  which  we  know, 
is  described  as  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  rnid-gard  sea 
curled  up  with  his  tail  in  his  mouth. 

Jormungandr  has  been  generally  considered  the  per- 
sonification of  the  mid-earth  sea ;  I  say  he  is  rather  the 
personification  of  the  mid-earth  river.  Now  the  difference 
between  a  sea  and  a  river  is  precisely  this,  that  one  is 
still  and  the  other  is  continually  flowing.  But  how  is  a 
river  to  lie  all  round  the  earth  and  yet  be  for  ever  flow- 
ing, unless  it  flows  into  itself?  Here  was  the  first  diffi- 
culty which  arose  when  men  tried  to  reconcile  the  old  and 
vague  ideas  of  primitive  belief  with  the  exacter  know- 
ledge of  later  times.  They  generally  met  the  difficulty 
by  making  the  river  flow  in  upon  itself.  The  Greek 
Oceanus  was  imagined  to  flow  in  this  returning  way ;  it 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  dyfroppoos,  returning  everlastingly  in 
its  own  bed.  Jormungandr  lies,  we  are  told,  with  his 
tail  in  his  mouth,  and  that  tail  is  continually  growing 
into  his  body.  This  image  certainly  suggests  the  idea  of  a 
river  flowing  in  upon  itself  like  Oceanus.1 

In  this  case,  then,  we  seem  to  have  discovered  a  river 
which  is  certainly  transformed  into  a  serpent.  In  the 
battles  between  Thorr,  the  hero  god  of  the  North,  and  this 
Jormungandr  we  seem  to  see  the  prototypes  of  most  of 
those  dragon  fights  whose  relation  delighted  the  ears  of 
Middle  Age  Europe,  from  the  fight  of  Sigurd  with  Fafnir 
to  that  of  our  St.  George.  Here  then  are  a  large  number 
of  serpents  and  dragons  whose  connection  with  rivers  is 
tolerably  certain. 

Now  turn  to  Greece.  The  serpent  fights  of  Hellenic 
mythology — the  combats  of  Apollo  with  the  Python,  or  of 
Heracles  with  the  Lernean  hydra,  or  with  the  serpent 
Ladon,  who  guarded  the  apples  of  the  Hesperides — show, 
even  at  the  first  glance,  a  close  resemblance  to  those 

1  I  have  discussed  this  origin  of  Jormurg-andr  at  greater  length  in  a 
paper  on  the  '  Mythology  of  the  Eddas,1  Trans,  of  the  Roy.  Soc.  of 
Literature,  vol.  xii. 


74  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  Thorr  with  Jormungandr.  This  alone  would  suggest 
that  the  above-mentioned  serpents  might  have  had  an 
origin  similar  to  the  origin  of  the  Norse  sea-serpent.  We 
are  not,  however,  limited  to  this  argument  by  analogy. 
In  the  case  of  the  Python,  at  any  rate,  the  close  associa- 
tion between  her  and  a  river  can  be  demonstrated.  We 
remember  that  the  fight  between  Apollo  and  the  Python, 
as  told  in  the  Homeric  hymn,  springs  directly  out  of  the 
enmity  of  the  fountain  goddess  Telphusa  to  the  sun  god. 
This  Telphusa  (or  Delphusa)  was,  unquestionably,  some 
ancient  fetich  river,  whose  worship  the  Dorian  cult  of 
Apollo  displaced  ;  and  so  the  myth  describes  her  contriving 
a  stratagem  to  rid  herself  of  her  rival.  She  sent  him  to 
the  deep  cleft  of  Parnassus,  where  the  Python,  her  other 
self,  dwelt ;  when  Apollo  had  slain  this  monster,  he 
returned  and  polluted  the  fountains  of  Telphusa.  M. 
Maury,  in  his  '  Religions  de  la  Grece,' l  quotes  from  Herr 
Forchhammer  an  ocular  experience  of  the  death  of  the 
Python  beneath  the  arrows  of  the  sun  god.  In  the  great 
amphitheatre  of  Delphi,  whose  very  name  was  taken  from 
the  concavity  of  the  valley  (&s\<j)vs,  belly)  which  was  the 
site  of  the  town,  is  poured,  during  the  rainy  season,  a 
rapid  torrent  which  passes  between  the  two  rocks  formerly 
called  Nauplia  and  Hyampeia.  During  spring  the 
waters  dry  up  and  evaporate,  so  that  in  summer  the 
torrent  brings  no  water  to  Delphi.  The  fountains  of 
Castalia  and  Cassotis  are  supplied  simply  by  the  subter- 
ranean flow  of  the  waters  from  Mount  Parnassus.  The 
drying  up  of  this  torrent,  through  the  heat  of  the  sun 
(Apollo),  is  the  death  of  the  great  serpent.  The  writer 
goes  on  to  point  out  how  the  name  of  this  serpent  is  first 
AsX^w??— that  is,  full  of  water  (from  8e\(f>vs  and  vvos  for 
olvos;  in  this  connection  any  liquid) — and  afterwards 
Astylwrj,  empty-belly  (8s\^>vsy  Ivdw).  Ovid  says  that  this 
Python  was  born  from  the  earth  after  the  deluge  of 
Deucalion  5  Claudius  tells  us  that  he  devoured  rivers,  i.e. 

1  i.  134. 


THE  PYTHON.  75 

his  tributaries.  We  must  not,  of  course,  consider  the 
slaying  of  the  Python  as  a  local  myth  only ;  but  it  was 
localised  at  Delphi  and  there  spoke  of  a  particular 
stream. 

The  dragon  fights  of  Heracles  seem  to  group  them- 
selves in  pairs;  he  strangles  two  serpents  in  his  cradle, 
and  in  later  life  he  kills  the  hydra  and  the  serpent  Ladon  ; 
but  we  must  remember  also  that  he  fights  with  and 
conquers  two  rivers,  Peneius  and  Alpheius. 

The  two  great  Vedic  serpents  are  Ahi  and  Vritra.  In 
the  form  which  they  wear  in  the  hymns  they  seem  to  be 
symbolical  of  the  clouds  rather  than  of  any  thing  terrestrial. 
But,  I  think,  it  is  quite  possible  that  they  were  rivers 
before  they  became  clouds,  and  afterwards  were  trans- 
ferred from  earth  to  heaven.  Ahi  and  Vritra  are  still 
designated  generally  the  '  concealers '  or  '  containers  of 
the  water.' 

I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  serpents  had 
originally  no  more  than  this  symbolical  meaning.  I  can- 
not pretend  to  account  for  their  primitive  worship.  Only 
I  take  it  for  certain  that,  at  a  very  early  time,  rivers 
became,  through  symbolism,  confounded  with  serpents  ; 
that  in  all  the  mythologies  which  we  have  opportunities 
of  studying,  this  identification  has  gone. so  far  that  the 
worship  of  the  two  is  inextricably  involved  ;  and  hence 
that  the  cult  of  serpents,  in  any  wide  extent,  is  dependent 
upon  one  among  the  three  chief  forms  of  fetichism.  We 
have  already 'disposed  of  the  great  original  serpents — the 
Urschlanyen,  if  I  may  so  call  them — of  Greek  and  German 
mythology  :  the  more  we  see  of  the  countless  tribe  of 
their  descendants,  the  more  we  shall  be  reminded  of  the 
progeny  of  Ocean  us. 

A  characteristic  of  the  river,  noted  in  it  more  than  in 
any  other  fetich,  was  that  of  being  the  (  oldest  inhabitant ' 
of  the  country  where  it  flowed :  the  notion  of  the  river 
having  been  there  before  man  came,  and  possessing  the 
land  in  its  own  right,  was  ever  upheld.  To  this  notion 


76  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  river  owed,  in  part,  its  title  of  king.  Just  so  the 
snake  was  pictured  as  autochthonous,  first  dweller-in  the 
soil,  whereby  it  became  the  guardian  of  ancient  treasures, 
whether  these  treasures  were  life-giving  fruits,  apples  of 
the  Hesperides  or  of  Eden,  or,  as  in  the  vulgarer  and 
later  German  myths,  only  a  great  primeval  hoard.1  The 
snake  is  a  child  of  earth,  and  symbolises  the  oldest  dwellers 
011  the  soil.  When  Cyrus  was  marching  upon  Sardis, 
a  wonder  was  reported  to  Croesus  as  he  lay  in  that  city. 
The  town  was  suddenly  seen  to  be  full  of  snakes,  and  the 
horses  on  every  side  were  trampling  them  to  death.  And 
this  was  taken  for  a  sign  that  the  new  comers,  the  Per- 
sians, would  overcome  the  men  of  Lydia.2  In  Arcadia 
rivers  were  addressed  by  the  title  of  king  (ava%),z  perhaps 
as  progenitors  of  the  race  or  as  first  possessors  of  the 
land.  The  serpent,  too,  is  often  styled  a  king,  and  wears 
a  crown ;  this  still  more  frequently  in  German  and  Celtic 
than  in  Greek  tradition.  The  '  serpent  king  '  is  still  one 
of  the  most  popular  characters  of  modern  folk-lore.4  In 
Germany  upon  those  days  which  are  now  become  the  fes- 
tivals of  the  Church  great  honours  are  paid  to  him.  If  he 
comes  and  partakes  of  the  cakes  or  sweetmeats  prepared 
for  him  and  left  upon  the  hearth,  he  brings  luck  to  the 
house.  He  is  thus  a  sort  of  guarantee,  of  stability,  like 
the  house  tree  itself.  Or  we  may  fancy  him  some  ancestor 
of  the  house,  who  still  watches  over  it. 

The  connection  between  tree  and  serpent  worship  is 
very  close,  though  not  so  intimate  as  some  writers  would 
have  us  suppose.5  But,  however  intimate,  it  says  nothing 

1  The  term  '  heathen  hoard  '  ('  hae'Snum  hord  ')  is  used  to  describe  the 
buried  treasure  which  Beowulf  gained  by  slaying  the  fiery  serpent  (Beowulf, 
4546).      The  meaning,  of   course,  is  that  the  treasure  was  of  immense 
antiquity. 

2  Herod,  i.  77-80. 

3  As  by  Odysseus,  Od.  v.  445. 

4  A.  Wuttke,  Deutsche  Vollisabcrglau'be^  pp.  50-5. 

5  Mr.  Fergusson  has,  I  think,  given  a  quite  false  impression  by  treating 
of  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship  as  if  the  two  were  always  associated  in  belief, 
He  is  obliged  himself  to  acknowledge  that  such  is  not  the  case. 


SERPENT  WORSHIP.  77 

against  the  symbolic  character  of  the  mythic  serpent,  and 
its  origin  in  the  river ;  for  the  worship  of  trees  and  of  rivers 
is  likely  to  go  more  often  together  than  that  of  either  of 
these  fetiches  combined  with  mountains ;  for  this  reason, 
among  others,  that  the  tree  can  scarcely  grow  save  in  a 
land  where  streams  abound.  It  is  a  fact  that  we  cannot 
let  our  thoughts  rest  upon  any  familiar  religion  without 
at  once  recalling  a  dozen  examples  of  tree  and  serpent 
worship,  which  are  as  many  instances  of  the  survival  of  a 
still  more  ancient  fetichism.  I  am,  however,  ready  to 
admit  that  in  the  later  form  of  creed  the  serpent  often 
plays  a  part  which  does  not  seem  of  right  to  belong  to 
the  river.  The  fetich  river  is  nearly  always  a  life-giving 
power  :  it  is  the  predecessor  of  the  fontaine  dejouvence  ;  it 
is  the  Urdar  fount  from  which  were  watered  the  roots  of 
the  world  tree  Yggdrasill.  The  serpent  is,  on  the  contrary, 
often  a  destructive  and  evil  power,  as  was*  that  '  subtle 
beast '  of  Genesis,  and  Jormungandr  himself,  with  all  the 
dragons  his  descendants ;  as  was  the  Python,  or  those  an- 
tagonists of  Heracles  the  serpent  Ladon  and  the  Lernean 
hydra.  But  even  these  destructive  serpents  are  found 
in  close  association  with  the  tree  of  life.  The  serpent 
of  Genesis  entwines  it ;  Ladon  guards  the  apples  of  the 
Hesperides ;  NrShogg,  another  Eddaic  snake,  is  twined 
round  the  roots  of  Yggdrasill. 

Among  instances  of  a  more  direct  worship  was  that  of 
the  brazen  serpent  set  up  in  the  wilderness  which  was 
still  worshipped  by  the  Jews  in  the  days  of  Hezekiah ;  or 
(to  confine  ourselves  to  our  proper  province)  the  serpents 
which  were  to  be  found  in  most  of  the  temples  of  Greece ; 
one  in  the  Erechtheum  at  Athens,  which  was  kept  close 
beside  the  sacred  olive  tree,  another  in  the  temple  of  the 
Great  Goddesses.  The  reptile  was,  we  know,  before  all 
things  sacred  to  Asclepios,  arid  was  kept  in  his  house  ;  as, 
for  example,  in  the  great  temple  at  Epidauros.  It  would 
seem  that  the  sun  god  has  the  special  mission  of  over- 
coming and  absorbing  into  himself  this  form  of  fetich ; 


78  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

this  is  why  Apollo  slays  the  Python  and  why  the  snake  is 
sacred  to  Asclepios.1 

We  now  leave  this  anomalous  form,  serpent  worship, 
and  return  to  the  direct  history  of  fetichism.  It  is  evi- 
dently essential  to  the  true  fetich — I  mean  to  the  fetich 
which  is  worshipped  and  not  used  only  as  a  charm — that 
it  be  a  natural  product  and  not  the  work  of  man.  Men 
could  not  begin  by  themselves  creating  their  own  gods :  a 
fact  sufficiently  obvious  (though  it  has  been  lost  sight  of 
by  many  writers)  to  anyone  who  considers  what  man's 
creations  really  are.  All  making — that  is  to  say,  all  art 
— is  no  more  than  imitation  and  reproduction,  and  has,  in 
Sidney's  phrase,  '  the  works  of  nature  for  his  principal 
object ;  to  become,  as  it  were,  but  the  actor  and  player  of 
what  nature  will  have  set  forth.'  We  cannot  conceive  the 
process  of  mind  by  which  man,  who  had  never  seen  a  god, 
could  make* one,  or  how  he  could  give  bodily  shape  to 
what  had  hitherto  been  but  an  abstraction  of  his  mind. 
Obviously,  the  made  fetich  must  be  an  imitation  of  some 
thing,  and  if  that  made  fetich  is  held  sacred  it  must  be 
because  the  thing  which  it  resembled  had  been  first 
worshipped. 

The  later  fetich,  then — whether  it  be  an  imitation  of 
the  earlier  one  or  a  portion  of  it,  like  the  stick  or  stone 
which  an  African  savage  sets  up  in  his  forest — exists  only 
in  virtue  of  the  earlier  unmade  one.  It  is  impossible — at 
least  it  has  proved  so  as  yet — to  fathom  the  degree  of 
worship  the  African  savage  pays  to  this  stock  or  stone, 
or  to  say  what  ideas  his  mind  associates  with  it.  This 
alone  is  certain,  that  his  creed  is  a  survival  from  earlier 
phases  of  belief,  and,  like  other  survivals,  is  a  thing 
anomalous  in  itself.  It  may  coexist  with  various  different 
shades  of  intelligence  and  of  religious  perception.  The 
stick  or  stone  may  still  (in  virtue  of  survival)  be  con- 
sidered as  in  itself  a  thing  divine,  or  it  may  be  used  as  a 

1  Pausanias  (ii.  c.  28,  §  1  ;  see  also  x.  45,  xxii.  11)  says  that  Asclepios 
was  adored  under  the  form  of  a  serpent  at  Epidauros. 


STOCKS  AND  STONES.  79 

means  of  concentrating  the  mind  on  an  unseen  presence. 
Those  fetiches  which  have  a  distinctly  magical  character 
— such,  for  example,  as  pyrites — not  only  allow  of,  but  re- 
quire the  belief  in  unseen  gods  at  the  back  of  the  visible 
phenomena  which  give  them  birth ;  a  thunder  stone 
could  not  be  sacred  till  men  had  come  to  believe  in  a  god 
of  thunder.  Therefore  this  kind  of  fetiches,  of  which 
writers  have  often  spoken  as  if  they  were  the  products  of 
the  earliest  fetich-worshipping  phase  of  belief,  are  not 
really  so. 

The  later  fetiches  are  not  without  interest  to  our  study 
as  survivals.  I  can  imagine  that  the  nations  among  whom 
fetichism  was  once  most  rife  have  a  special  tendency  to 
reverence  these  concrete  material  objects.  Fetiches  of 
this  sort  have  always  been  very  common  in  the  Asiatic 
religions ;  for  which  reason  the  highest  Asiatic  religion, 
Hebraism  (and  Mohammedanism  after  that),  set  its  face 
against  the  imitation  of  anything  which  was  '  in  heaven 
or  earth,  or  in  the  water  under  the  earth.'  But  not  with 
entire  success.  The  conical- shaped  stones  (mag$ebas)  and 
the  stumps  (asheras ;  the  word  also  signifies  a  grove) 
which  were  conspicuous  in  the  religions  of  the  Syrians 
and  Phoenicians  were  often  adored  by  the  chosen  people. 
An  example  of  a  Mohammedan  fetich  exists  in  the  black 
stone  which  is  the  central  object  of  reverence  in  the 
Kaaba  at  Mecca,  and  which  all  pilgrims  salute. 

The  fetiches  last  spoken  of  may  have  had  some  connection 
with  phallic  worship.  But  when  this  was  the  case  they 
were  used  as  symbols  only ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  the  origin  of  their  use  lay  in  symbolism.  Far  more 
reasonable  is  it  to  suppose  that  everything  of  this  sort  has 
taken  its  place  in  worship  because  it  was  a  survival  and  a 
representative  of  the  once  divine  mountain  or  divine  tree. 
Of  course,  in  the  instances  just  given,  it  is  a  case  of  sur- 
vival— that  is  to  say,  of  superstitio  only.  We  know  enough 
of  the  creed  of  the  Syrians  and  of  the  Phoenicians  to  be 
in  no  danger  of  supposing  that  these  asheras  and 


80  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

bas  were  their  very  gods ;  nor  is  there  any  fear  lest  the 
Mohammedan  should  confound  with  the  veritable  Allah 
the  black  stone  of  the  Kaaba,  though  he  kisses  this  at 
the  crowning  rite  of  his  long  pilgrimage. 

Of  the  same  kind  with  these  Asiatic  stones  and  stumps 
were  the  holy  objects  (agalmata — not  yet  images)  of  the 
Greeks.  Take,  for  example,  the  two  stumps  joined  by  a 
third  in  the  shape  of  the  letter  II,  which  was  worshipped 
as  the  image  of  the  Dioskuri  (Castor  and  Pollux).1  A 
rough  piece  of  wood,  called  the  sceptre  of  Agamemnon, 
was  worshipped  at  Argos  ;  another  *  which  had  come  down 
from  heaven '  was  worshipped  at  Thebes  as  the  Cadmeian 
Dionysus.  The  thyrsus  of  this  last  god  and  the  Palladium 
(agalma  of  Pallas)  are  other  instances  in  point.  Nor 
were  the  stone  agalmata  less  numerous.  There  was  the 
column  which  represented  the  Zeus  Meilichios  of  Sicyon;2 
at  Hyettus,  in  Bceotia,  was  a  rough  stone  which  men 
called  the  agalma  of  Heracles ; 3  at  Thespise,  an  antique 
agalma  of  Eros  (chief  divinity  of  this  Phryne  city)  of  the 
same  kind  ; 4  and  at  Pharse  (Achaia)  were  thirty  stones  of 
quadrangular  shape,  each  bearing  the  name  of  some  god. 
'  In  truth,'  Pausanias  adds,  when  he  has  spoken  of  these 
last,  '  among  all  the  Hellenes  rude  stones  once  received 
adoration  as  things  divine.'  5 

Objects  such  as  these  may,  I  have  said,  have  been 
chiefly  used  to  concentrate  the  mind  on  some  inward  idea, 
as  children  use  sticks  and  stones  to  play  with,  and  endow 
them  with  the  names  of  real  or  imaginary  persons.  Savages 
will  do  the  same  in  a  most  serious  fashion ;  and  the  witch 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  following  the  example  of  children 
and  savages  in  this,  made  a  waxen  image  to  represent  an 
absent  person.  Yet  in  every  case  the  image  ends  by  being, 


1  Winckelmann,  Hist,  de  VArt,  i.  ch.  i.     Pausanias  imagines  this  to  be- 
the  origin  of  the  letter  n  (viii.).  2  Max.  Tyr.  and  Clemens  Alex.  ii. 

3  Pans.  ix.  24,  3.  4  Id.  ix.  27,  1. 

5  Paus.  vii.  22,  3.     Cf.  Lenormant  in  the  Revue  de  VHist.  des  Rel.  1881, 
Les  B Styles.' 


81 

to  some  extent,  confused  with  the  being  represented,  and 
so  becomes  endowed  with  a  sort  of  vitality  and,  if  it  is  the 
image  of  a  god,  with  a  sort  of  sacredness.  The  habit, 
therefore,  of  regarding  such  mere  blocks  and  shapeless 
masses  with  religious  reverence  might  continue  into  the 
days  of  a  refined  creed.  It  did  continue  among  the  Greeks 
into  the  days  of  high  artistic  conception,  and  by  so  doing 
had  an  important  influence  upon  the  development  of 
Greek  art. 

After  a  while,  as  religion  progressed  toward  a  personal 
and  more  human  conception  of  God,  the  stones  or  the 
blocks  (or  the  trees  as  they  stood)  began  to  be  carved  into 
rough  likenesses  of  human  beings.  When  the  image  of 
the  god  was  made  out  of  a  tree  still  growing,  he  was 
called  endendros  (EvS-svSpos).  We  have  Zeus  Endendros, 
Apollo  Endendros,  Dionysus  Endendros.  The  thyrsus  of 
Dionysus,  made  out  of  a  vine  prop,  was  sometimes  shaped 
at  the  end  into  the  image  of  a  rude  bearded  head.  The 
terminus  of  still  later  times  was  a  relic  of  this  curious 
and  noteworthy  stage  of  belief. 

This  was  in  truth  eminently  a  transition  period  of 
thought ;  it  was  marked,  as  transition  times  always  are, 
by  much  confusion,  by  an  attempted  adaptation  of  the 
older  elements  of  belief  to  those  new  ones  which  had  in 
reality  superseded  them.  When  the  thing — the  stone  or 
stump — was  no  longer  an  actual  god,  it  was  still  to  men's 
thought  permeated  by  a  divine  essence  as  by  a  sap.  So 
that  when  a  statue  had  to  be  made,  a  substance  of  such  a 
kind  that  it  was  in  itself  holy,  that  which  had  once  been 
a  fetich,  was  found  far  more  suitable  for  the  purpose  than 
any  chance  fragment  of  wood  or  stone.  Wherefore  we 
see  many  instances  of  oracular  command  to  carve  an 
image  out  of  some  particular  holy  tree.1  Clearly  a  higher 
order  of  divinity  would  reside  in  an  ill-made  statue  of  this 

1  See  Bcetticher,  Baumcultus,  p.  214.      The  original  image  of  Athene 
Polias  was  made  from  her  sacred  olive  tree  (Plutarch,  T/iemist.  10). 

G 


82  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

sort  than  in  the  finest  work  of  art  which  had  no  mystery 
or  holiness  mingling  with  its  substance. 

The  tree  fetich  was  a  thing  prayed  to  of  itself:  its 
existence  independent  of  man,  its  nature  not  human 
nature.  The  carved  tree  shared  the  sacredness  of  the 
uncarved  one,  and  the  face  upon  it  only  implied  this 
much,  that  the  fetich  confessed  a  likeness  to  mankind.  It 
was  never  meant  to  assert  an  identity  between  the  divine 
and  human  characters.  As  these  rude  images  (agalmata) 
must  have  been  the  beginning  of  sculpture  among  the 
Greeks,1  it  cannot  but  have  followed  that  the  remains  of 
the  fetichistic  spirit  deeply  affected  the  early  development 
of  Greek  art.  We  musb  not  look  upon  the  rude  archaic 
statue  as  in  any  way  representing  man's  ideal  of  human 
nature,  or  even  his  nearest  approach  to  such  an  ideal. 
The  mouth  with  its  fixed  smile,  the  eyes  with  their  dull 
stare,  were  put  there  in  the  spirit  in  which  they  might  be 
suggested  by  writing  the  words  mouth  and  eyes  upon  the 
block ;  or  as  '  the  plaster,  or  the  loam,  or  the  rough-cast ' 
stood  for  '  wall '  with  the  performers  of  that  '  tedious  brief 
play  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe.' 2  The  real  life,  I  mean,  of 
the  agalma,  and  its  real  influence  upon  the  imagination, 

1  Greek  national  art  was  not,  of  course,  a  pure  creation  of  the  Greek 
mind,   but,  in  a  certain  degree,  a  legacy  from  Assyrian,  Egyptian,  and 
Phoenician  art ;  for,  no  doubt,  the  mere  delight  in  the  representation  of  life, 
as  displayed  in  the  earlier  art  of  these  lands  without  any  special  considera- 
-tion  for  the  thing  represented,  was  the  first  thing  which  stirred   in  the 

Greeks  their  aesthetic  taste.  But  the  art  which  was  merely  imitative  was 
not  yet  Hellenic.  What  was  needed  was  that  the  Greeks  should  use  the 
power  acquired  by  imitation  for  the  expression  of  Greek  ideas.  As  we 
know,  they  did  use  it  chiefly  to  express  their  belief  about  the  gods  and 
heroes. 

2  It  is  well  worth  noticing  about  archaic  art  that  it  has  a  double  way 
of  expressing  itself,  partly   as   a   complete   representation  of  the    thing 
designed  and  partly  as  a  sort  of  catalogue  of  the  parts  which  make  up  the 
thing.      Thus  in  a  profile  face  the  eye  is  always  drawn  as  if  seen  full,  not 
because  the  artist  ever  saw  it  in  that  way,  but  because  he  knew  there  was 
an  eye  at  this  place,  and  his  full  drawing  of  an  eye  was  the  only  thing 
which   expressed   '  eye  '   to   his   mind.      In  the  same  way  the  joints  are 
articulated  in  a  very  curious  way.     To  borrow  a  term  from  heraldry,  we 
might  call  this  '  canting  art.'     It  forms,  I  think,  an  important  stage  in  the 
growth  of  hieroglyphics. 


FETICH  WORSHIP  AND  ART.  83 

lay  in  the  thing  itself.  That  would  quite  alone  be 
wondrous  and  mystic,  whereas  the  expression  given  to  it 
was  but  an  accessory.  With  us  it  is  the  very  opposite. 
The  only  meaning  of  the  statue  is  in  its  expression ;  with- 
out that  the  marble  is  lifeless  indeed. 

If  we  succeed  at  all  in  realising  a  state  of  mind  such 
as  that  of  the  worshipper  of  shapeless  agalmata,  we  shall 
understand  how  an  interest  and  a  veneration  might  attach 
to  the  objects  as  things  far  greater  than  any  which  in  later 
times  attached  to  a  statue  as  the  realisation  of  an  idea. 
This  explains  why  we  find  so  many  instances  in  which  an 
archaic  image  has  been  enshrined  in  the  most  holy  place 
of  a  temple ;  while  all  around,  used  as  accessories  only, 
were  the  triumphs  of  a  later  art.  None  of  these  later 
statues — albeit  they  were  statues  of  gods,  and  in  some 
cases  of  the  same  god  as  he  who  dwelt  within  the  shrine 
— could  rival  the  ancient  image  in  the  popular  affections. 
Twenty  lesser  instances  of  such  a  state  of  things  will  at 
once  occur  to  the  reader.  The  great  typical  instance  is 
that  of  the  Artemisium  at  Ephesus.  Some  remains  of 
this  wonder  of  the  world  have,  in  quite  recent  days,  been 
recovered  and  brought  to  this  country ;  and  we  may  judge 
from  them  (if  we  were  in  doubt  before)  that  in  outward 
decorative  art  it  was  inferior  to  no  production  of  its  own 
age.  In  the  holy  of  holies  still  stood  the  •time-honoured 
image  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis,  that  hideous  figure  only 
part  human,  part  bestial  or  worse,  and  part  still  a  block. 
This  had  been  the  central  object  of  all,  from  earliest  to 
latest  days.  For  the  sake  of  this  the  three  temples  had 
risen  one  upon  the  site  of  the  other.1  A  real  Greek  Ar- 
temis might  adorn  the  sculptures  of  the  walls,  might  be 
allowed  presence  as  an  ornament  merely,  but  the  popular 
worship  was  paid  to  the  deformed  figure  within. 

It  seems  not  improbable  that  when  an  artist,  such  as 
Pheidias  or  Polycleitus,  was  commissioned  to  execute  the 

*  >  J.  T.  Wood,  Discoveries  at  Ejthcsvs,  p.  263. 

G    2 


84  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

great  statue  of  any  temple,  as  the  Athene  of  the  Par- 
thenon, the  Zeus  Olympics  at  Elis,  the  Hera  at  Argos,  his 
representation  was  more  archaic  and  stiff  than  what  the 
artist  would  have  produced  if  left  to  his  own  fancy  merely. 
I  think  the  descriptions  which  we  have  of  the  greater 
statues  suggest  such  a  custom  in  art.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  there  was,  relatively,  far  less  room  for  the 
sculptor's  talent  in  the  figure  of  the  great  Athene 
Partheiios — clad,  as  she  was,  in  full  armour  with  spear 
and  helmet — than  in  that  other  figure  of  the  same  goddess 
which  adorned  the  frieze  of  her  temple.1  It  is  certain, 
again,  that  we  see  this  influence  of  tradition  in  early 
Italian  art.  The  greater  divinities — if  I  may  use  that 
expression — are  more  stiff  and  conventional,  more  archaic, 
than  those  who  accompany  them.  The  Virgin  and  Child 
remind  us  more  of  the  primitive  Byzantine  type  than  do 
the  angels  who  fly  around.  So  late  as  down  to  the  time 
of  Botticelli  this  difference  of  treatment  can  easily  be 
detected. 

By  far  the  most  important  and  deeply  interesting  of 
all  the  chapters  in  the  history  of  design  is  that  which 
shows  us  the  Greek  sculpture  passing  away  from  these 
traditions,  leaving  its  archaic  work  behind  it,  and  making 
its  thoughts  really  speak  in  the  productions  of  its  hand  ; 
when  the  features  no  longer  remain  so  many  labels 
expressing  the  fact  of  vitality,  but  are  fashioned  to  show 
the  depth  and  meaning  of  life.  A  supreme  moment,  for 
example,  I  would  call  it  in  the  life  of  the  world  when  the 
old  archaic  mouth,  fixed  and  meaningless,  has  the  lips 
turned  downwards,  and  begins  to  take  that  curve  which 


1  It  is  of  course  obvious  that  a  draped  figure  would  be  more  seemly  for 
worship  than  an  undrapedone.  It  is  known  that  the  people  of  Cos  refused 
Praxiteles'  statue  of  the  nude  Aphrodite,  and  that  it  was  in  consequence 
transferred  to  Cnidus.  On  the  other  hand  (at  a  much  earlier  date  than  1  he 
time  of  Praxiteles),  nude  Aphrodites  were  portrayed  on  the  friezes  of 
temple  walls.  This  witnesses,  at  any  rate,  to  the  distinction  made  in 
popular  thought  between  the  great  statue  and  those  others  which  were 
merely  ornamental. 


THE  GROWTH   OF 

ever  since  has  served  to  express  depth  of  feeling  and 
greatness  of  soul.  Sometimes  we  almost  seem  to  detect 
the  moment  of  this  transition.1  When  the  step  has  once 
been  made,  the  change  goes  rapidly  on,  and  soon  the 
human  form  keeps  but  slight  and  not  entirely  unpleasing 
traces  of  its  archaism.  The  stiff,  expressionless  face  is 
replaced  by  one  which  is  only  so  far  stiff  that  it  shows 
not  the  passing  wave  of  emotion,  but  the  fixed  character 
of  the  wearer.  The  limbs  which  formerly  could  neither 
stand,  nor  sit,  nor  kneel  with  grace,2  can  do  all  these  things 
naturally,  but  they  do  not  readily  change  from  one  atti- 
tude to  another,  and  there  is  not  in  the  figures  of  this 
time  the  portrayal  of  quick  or  dramatic  movement  any 
more  than  of  transient  thought.  This  firmness  of  atti- 
tude and  expression,  implying  a  certain  self-reliance  and 
stability  of  character,  is  therefore  in  part  an  inheritance 
from  archaic  tradition,  but  it  not  the  less  constitutes  the 
characteristic  of  the  highest  art. 

And,  Vithout  doubt,  this  age  in  representation,  as 
compared  with  any  which  follow  it,  is  that  in  which  the 
thing  portrayed  is  the  most  real  and  living  to  artist 
and  beholder ;  as  what  is  ingrained  and  firm  and  seems 
perpetual  must  always  be  more  real,  and  so  more  vener- 
able, than  what  is  fleeting  and  passionate.  The  archaic 
statue,  in  spite  of  its  absence  of  expression,  was  always 
looked  upon  as  a  thing  quite  real  and  living.  And  this 
from  two  causes :  first,  because  of  the  relic  of  fetichism 
which  made  the  mere  thing — block  of  wood  or  stone — a 
living  existence  ;  and  secondly,  because  the  carved  image, 
rude  as  it  was,  was  still  the  first  representation  of  a  human 
being  yet  put  before  the  world.  To  us  it  is  shapeless 
enough,  a  thing  of  nought ;  to  primitive  man  it  was  a 
wonder.  The  stone,  alive  in  itself  and  merely  as  a  stone, 

1  I  could  point  to  two  coins  of  JSnus,  in  Thrace,  closely  resembling  each 
other  in  style,  which  yet  have  this  distinction,  that  the  moulh  of  one  is 
essentially  the  archaic  mouth,  that  of  the  other  essentially  the  Greek  rnouth. 

2  See,  for  instance,  the  ^Eginetan  marbles. 


86  -  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

had  in  addition  pat  on  a  likeness  to  human  kind ;  it  was 
endowed  with  eyes,  a  mouth,  a  nose,  could  touch  and 
taste  and  smell.  With  some  of  the  stiffness  of  the  bygone 
times  the  early  fine  sculpture  inherited  a  sense  of  reality, 
of  wonder  too  and  awe,  attaching  to  the  image  itself,  such 
as  could  never  belong  to  it  when  art  grew  more  familiar. 

All  this  was  of  a  piece  with  early  Greek  belief,  which 
was  at  first  unquestioning,  taking  the  world  as  it  found  it, 
arid  attracted  with  an  intenser  love  for  individual  objects 
in  that  world  than  other  men  had  been.  The  grand  style 
of  sculpture  may  be  said  to  belong  to  the  age  of  intense 
and  true  belief  in  the  divinity  of  nature. 

We  have  thus  seen  two  ways  in  which,  outside  its  own 
sphere,  fetichism  affected  the  development  of  thought. 
One  was  in  the  direction  of  politics,  by  infusing  into  men 
the  germs  of  patriotism  and  a  special  attachment  to  the 
soil  on  which  they  were  born ;  the  other  was  in  the  di- 
rection of  art,  by  giving  men  a  sense  of  the  sacredness  of 
things  as  things,  out  of  which  reverence  was  m  time  to 
grow  the  sense  of  the  beauty  and  holiness  of  all  parts  of 
nature. 

The  last  effects  of  fetichism  in  the  history  of  belief 
were  not  done  with  even  when  the  fetich  had  quite  disr- 
appeared.  If  the  worship  of  the  river  or  mountain  left 
deep  traces  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  then  the  river 
and  mountain  gods,  or  gods  who  suited  best  with  such  cha- 
racters, would  still  hold  sway  with  the  people.  Wherefore 
beings  who  seem  to  have  been  born  in  this  way  from  the 
earth  and  the  things  of  earth,  often  outlive  all  the  other 
members  of  a  pantheon,  and  show  themselves  again  when 
they  are  least  to  be  looked  for.  We  shall  see  in  another 
chapter  how  such  divinities  seem  sometimes  longer  lived 
than  all  other  portions  of  a  creed. 

When  beings  of  the  fetich  kind  make  their  reappear- 
ance under  changed  conditions  of  thought,  it  is  like 
the  birth  (which  sometimes  happens)  from  two  white- 


SUKVIVALS  OF  FETICHISM.  87 

skinned  parents  of  one  who  bears  all  the  marks  of  the 
yellow-skinned  races — an  instance  of  what  is  called  atavism, 
or  reversion  to  the  original  type.  To  the  lower  orders  of 
Egypt  their  great  fetich  god,  the  Nile,  was  probably  more 
worship-worthy  than  the  elemental  deities  who  were 
honoured  by  the  priests  and  upper  classes.  And  it  is  no 
doubt  on  this  account  that  we  have  to  note  the  strange 
appearance  as  late  as  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  of  our 
era,  when  Egypt  and  all  Northern  Africa  had  been  long 
since  Christianised,  of  the  Nile  god.1  Ka  and  Amun, 
Thoth  and  Ptah,  Osiris  and  Horus,  had  been  long  since 
slain  by  Christ  and  buried  in  oblivion;  but  this  Nile  god 
was  imprinted  deep  in  men's  hearts,  and  was  not  yet  for- 
gotten. We  find  the  Khone  worshipped  in  France  down 
to  the  twelfth  century,  and  the  dead  committed  to  its  care 
— as  the  dead  still  are  to  the  care  of  the  Ganges.  Fetichisin 
survives  in  the  honours  paid  to  wells  and  fountains, 
common  in  Germany  and  in  some  parts  of  France,  and  in 
England  known  under  the  name  of  '  well-dressing,'  a  simple 
rustic  festival,  wherein  procession  is  made  to  the  well  or 
fountain  and  flowers  as  offerings  are  cast  therein.  Some 
slight  ritual,  a  rustic  dance  or  something  of  the  sort, 
accompanies  the  ceremony.  Tree  worship  is  preserved  in 
the  Christmas  tree,2  in  which  the  boughs  of  the  tree  (like 
the  oak  of  Dodona,  green  still  though  it  is  winter)  are 
hung  with  flowers  and  ribbons.  Tree  worship  survives  in 
the  dance  round  the  maypole. 

The  fetich  is  essentially  a  local  god  ;  it  is,  therefore,  a 
survival  of  the  spirit  of  fetichism  that  habit  among  the 
Greeks  (of  which  Plato  complains  3)  of  speaking  of  the 
statue  as  the  god,  and  thus  of  speaking  of  particular 
shrines  and  particular  places  as  being  under  the  protection 
of  the  local  god,  who  was  really  the  local  statue.  Men 

1  Simocatta  (vii.  1C)  relates  the  appearance  in  the  Nile  of  a  huge  man, 
who  was  seen  rising  out  of  the  river  as  fur  as  his  waist.     He  was  believed 
to  be  the  Nile  god. — Maury,  'Magic. 

2  Though  this  is  for  us  only  a  recent  importation  from  Germany. 
8  fojmblic. 


88  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

spoke  Of  laying1  an  offering  on  the  knees  of  Athene, 
because  it  was  laid  upon  the  knees  of  her  statue.  They 
spoke  of  their  Apollo  Lyksens,  Apollo  of  Triopium,  of  their 
Ismenean  Apollo,  as  if  these  were  all  separate  divinities  ; 
as  a  Catholic  might  have  spoken,  or  might  speak,  of  Our 
Lady  of  Loretto,  Our  Lady  of  Lonrdes,  as  if  each  were 
a  special  local  Virgin.  When,  before  the  battle  of  Platsea, 
the  Greeks  and  Persians  stood  face  to  face,  an  oracle 
promised  victory  to  the  Athenians  if  they  would  pay  their 
vows  to  certain  divinities,  including  Hera  of  Citheron,  and 
to  some  local  heroes,  and  if  they  fought  in  their  own 
country,  especially  in  the  plain  of  Demeter  Eleusina  and 
Persephone.  The  Athenians  were  perplexed  with  this 
answer.  '  For,'  said  they,  '  we  are  directed  to  fight  upon 
our  own  soil,  and  yet  to  pay  our  vows  to  Hera"  of  Citheron 
and  to  the  local  nymphs  and  heroes.5  How  could  these 
help  them,  they  thought,  if  they  moved  away  from  the 
territory  over  which  their  power  extended,  and  yet  this 
was  Platsean  and  not  Athenian  soil.  The  difficulty  was 
removed,  we  remember,  by  the  gift  of  the  district  from  the 
Platseans  to  the  Athenians.1  The  existence  of  the  diffi- 
culty shows  the  localisation  of  such  a  great  goddess  as 
Hera.  This  is  one  of  the  survivals  from  the  days  of  fetich 
worship. 

The  last  faint  echoes  of  this  belief  are  fonnd  in  the 
uses  of  objects  such  as  the  relics  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
the  very  feiti$os  from  which  the  belief  has  received  its 
name.  The  bone  of  the  saint,  the  nail  from  the  true 
Cross,  are  fetiches  of  this  sort.  In  such  instances  as 
these  the  creed  is  so  far  dying  out  that  it  is  degenerating 
into  mere  magic. 

Every  creed  has  its  special  kind  of  superstition,  which 
is  in  fact  superstitio,  or  the  standing  over  of  some  ideas 
derived  from  the  old  belief  into  a  new  stasre.  The  special 

o  i 

superstition   of   fetichism    is    magic ;   wherefore  we   find 

magic  common  among  savage  races,  many  of  whom,  it  is 

1  Plutarch,  Vita  Arist. 


.  VITALITY  OF  BELIEF  IN  MAGIC.  89 

probable,  are  emerging  from  the  earliest  phase  of  belief. 
What  I  mean  by  magic  is  the  belief  in  exceptional 
qualities  residing  in  particular  parts  of  matter,  along  with 
the  recognition  that  these  things  are  matter  and  have  not 
a  will  of  their  own.  As  has  been  before  pointed  out,  when 
any  stone  or  any  lion's  tail  may  be  magical  it  is  impossible 
to  suppose  that  the  inherent  power  belongs  by  right  to  the 
thing.  If  a  stone  merely  as  a  stone  were  endowed  with 
power  and  will  to  do  hurt  or  good,  then  by  analogy  every 
stone  would  be  endowed  with  this  power.  There  would 
then  be  no  exceptional  power  in  any,  and  magic  would 
become  swallowed  up  by  the  very  commonness  of  it. 
Magic,  of  course,  exists  along  with  almost  any  form  of 
belief,  but  also  it  may  exist  unaccompanied  by  anything 
which  we  can  fairly  call  belief.  It  may  be  a  mere  survival. 
Travellers  have  often  believed  themselves  to  have  dis- 
covered examples  of  magic  rites  without  any  religion. 
Tennent,  we  have  seen,  believed  so.1  We  cannot,  however, 
say  whether  the  other  element  is  really  absent,  whether 
these  travellers  have  encountered  a  creed  in  a  state  of  decay, 
or  whether  the  deeper  belief  has  been  only  hidden  from 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  point  to  some  cases  in 
which  belief  has  been  actually  abandoned  and  the  sense 
of  magic  has  remained  behind.  In  such  a  phase  the  be- 
lief in  magic  presents  before  us  an  exceedingly  anomalous 
condition  of  mind ;  it  is  scepticism  plus  the  superstition 
of  fetichism.  But,  anomalous  as  it  is,  it  is  not  infrequent. 
Magic  generally  becomes  more  or  less  prominent  when 
belief  is  in  a  state  of  decay.  We  know  how  well  this 
truth  was  illustrated  by  the  practice  of  magic  in  Rome  in 
the  days  of  the  Empire.  In  Italy  in  the  days  of  the 
Renaissance  we  have  not  the  same  frequency  of  definite 
magical  rites,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  com- 
pletest  example  on  record  of  the  prominence  of  the  magic 
sense  in  belief.2 

1  Supra,  p.  50. 

2  I  do  not  think  that  magic  and  witchcraft  should  always  be  classed 


90  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Sisinondi  has  given  us  a  picture  of  the  popular  belief 
in  Italy  at  this  period.  We  see  how  there  religion  had 
become  divorced  not  only  from  morality  but  almost  from 
all  recognition  of  a  Personality  at  the  back  of  the  world 
of  sense.  What  was  recognised  was  the  thing  called 
priesthood,  with  certain  mysterious  rights  which  it  pos- 
sessed. The  highest  of  priests,  the  Pope,  was  nothing 
as  a  man,  and  other  potentates  might  make  war  upon 
him,  cheat  him,  be  cheated  by  him,  and  yet  never  touch 
the  sacerdotal  part.  The  disgraceful  conduct  of  a  prelate 
did  not  seem  more  disgraceful  because  of  his  ecclesiastical 
dignity;  a  Pope  might  use  the  basest  treason,  and 
men  were  not  more  scandalised  because  he  was  a  Pope ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  his  enemy  might  employ  what 
force  or  artifice  he  chose  to  rob  him  of  his  earthly  terri- 
tories.1 All  this  was  only  dealing  with  the  priest  or  pope 
upon  his  civil  side — that  is  to  say,  as  a  man.  But  touch 
the  side  of  doctrine — that  is  to  say,  attempt  to  interfere 
with  the  stream  of  magical  power  which  flowed  into  pope 
or  priest — and  you  at  once  made  yourself  an  outcast  from 
all  human  sympathy.  '  The  very  persons  who,  in  secular 
affairs,  put  so  slight  a  rein  upon  their  ambition  and  upon 
their  political  passions,  trembled  only  at  the  name  of  the 
Hussites.  They  did  not  ask  if  their  doctrine  was  damnable, 
if  it  was  opposed  to  the  f  undanrental  doctrines  on  which 
are  based  the  structure  of  society  and  the  relationship  of 
man  and  God:  all  they  cared  to  know  was  that  the 
teaching  was  condemned ;  then  their  only  desire  was  to 
destroy  it  by  fire  and  sword.'  It  was  not  in  these  days,  as 
in  the  Middle  Ages  it  had  been,  a  misconception  of  what 
the  heretic  believed  that  made  men  desire  his  destruction ; 
it  was  really  no  question  of  belief  at  all.  The  Hussite 
was  one  who  threatened  to  tap  the  sacred  founts  of  power 

together.  The  essential  feature  of  the  witch's  craft  is  the  compact  with 
Satan  ;  magic  of  the  sceptical  sort  is  a  kind  of  bastard  experimentalism — 
empiricism. 

1  See  Sismondi,  Rcpub.  Ital.  vol.  ix.  ch.  Ixx. 


TRANSITION  TO  NATURE  WORSHIP.  91 


— not  material  power,  but  immaterial,  magical — which 
hitherto  had  flowed  in  through  the  Church;  and  men 
were  naturally  willing  to  light  for  their  share  of  the  gift, 
which  they  honestly  believed  themselves  to  possess,  quite 
independently  of  their  personal  character.  The  relation- 
ship of  this  fount  of  magic  to  a  Supernal  Being  was 
almost  utterly  lost  sight  of.  Its  source  was  no  longer 
thought  of.  Eather  was  it  deemed  of  a  nature  like  the 
wind,  of  which  men  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh.  This 
alone  they  knew,  that  from  old  time  it  had  belonged  to 
the  Church,  to  the  priesthood,  and  had  been  transmitted 
from  man  to  man  by  a  regular  rite,  a  kind  of  incantation. 
And  now  these  Hussites  would  try  and  pollute  or  turn  the 
sources.  Should  they  not  at  all  sacrifices  be  hindered 
from  so  doing  ? 

I  do  not  know  that  the  whole  history  of  human  thought 
can  offer  us  a  better  example  than  this  of  the  belief  in 
magic,  unalloyed  by  any  other  kind  of  belief. 

The  clearly  marked  creed  which  follows  next  after 
fetichism  is  the  worship  of  the  great  phenomena  of  the 
world,  those  phenomena,  as  I  have  before  said,  which  are 
to  a  certain  degree  abstractions.  The  wind  and  the  storm 
are  not  definite  things,  .as  trees  and  mountains  are.  In 
the' class  of  phenomena  we  must  place  the  heavenly  bodies 
for  they  are  not  only  celestial,  but  in  a  manner  abstracted 
also.  In  this  stage  of  belief  it  is  not  so  much  the  disc 
of  the  sun  which  men  worship  as  all  the  phenomena  asso- 
ciated with  sunlight — its  brightness,  warmth,  vitality,  and 
so  forth.  The  sky  god  includes  in  his  nature  more  ap- 
pearances than  are  visible  at  any  particular  moment ;  the 
dawn  too  is,  in  part,  an  abstraction.  All  these  existences 
belong  to  the  second  order  of  divinities.  Most  of  the  gods 
of  this  order  are  further  distinguished  by  the  fact  that 
they  reveal  themselves  only  to  one  or  two  of  the  senses, 
while  the  fetich  gods  can  be  explored  by  all  at  once ;  the 
wind  can  be  felt  and  -heard  only,  the  sun  only  felt  and 


92  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

seen.  It  belongs  to  the  mystery  of  our  nature  that  of 
those  things  which  we  know  least  we  can  imagine  most ; 
and  it  is  a  part  of  the  second  stage  in  the  growth  of  belief 
that  the  mind  begins  to  supply  from  within  what  is  no 
longer  given  by  the  senses  without. 

The  earth  and  sea  may  seem  doubtfully  to  belong  to 
the  higher  class  of  divinities.  But  it  is  evident  that 
neither  earth  nor  sea,  when  thought  of  as  a  whole,  is  a 
finite  object,  but  each  an  abstraction,  or  at  least  a  gene- 
ralisation. Nevertheless  the  sea  may  be  narrowed  in 
imagination  to  some  particular  bay;  the  earth  may  be 
confined  to  some  particular  mountain  or  valley.  Where- 
fore these  terrene  divinities  lie  nearer  to  the  race  of 
fetiches  than  any  celestial  phenomena  do;  and  we  find 
they  often  slide  back  into  the  earlier  class.  When  the 
creed  has  reached  its  higher  developments  the  earth  and 
sea  gods  and  goddesses  remain  behind,  to  be  cherished  and 
specially  worshipped  by  the  lower  strata  of  society.1 

As  all  the  following  chapters  of  the  volume  will  deal 
with  divinities  of  this  second  and  higher  order,  there  is  no 
need  to  say  more  about  them  here.  There  is,  however, 
a  small  intermediate  class  of  beings  whom  we,  in  the 
study  of  religious  systems,  are  scarcely  disposed  to  speak 
of  as  gods,  who  have  yet  in  their,  time  received  no  small 
share  of  worship,  and  who  have  filled  in  ancient  creeds  a 
wider  space  than  we  perhaps  suppose.  They  belong, 
strictly  speaking,  to  neither  camp,  and  therefore  they 
have  been  left  behind  in  the  march.  We  cannot  call 
these  gods  anything  better  than  the  generalisation  of  the 
old  fetiches.  They  thus  form  an  exact  middle  term  be- 
tween these  fetiches  and  those  wider  generalisations  of 
nature  worship.  We  spoke  of  them  in  the  last  chapter. 
They  are  the  fetiches  transformed  just  as  the  word  tree  is 
transformed  by  coming  to  mean  not  one  particular  tree  but 
all  the  members  of  the  grove.  Supposing,  for  example, 
that  the  men  who  have  once  worshipped  only  trees  come 
1  See  Chapter  V.' 


NYMPHS  AND  DKYADS.  93 

in  time  to  worship  the  wind  as  the  spirit  of  their  forest, 
then,  as  a  middle  term  in  this  transition,  they  will  have 
worshipped  the  forest  itself.  If  from  having  worshipped 
the  river  they  come  (as  we  shall  see  they  do)  to  worship 
the  cloud  and  then  the  air,  as  a  middle  term  they  will 
have  worshipped  the  generalisation  of  their  rivers,  or, 
perhaps,  for  something  more  intangible  than  the  rivers 
themselves,  the  mists  which  rise  up  from  them.  The 
divinities  of  this  transition  class  are  now  lost  to  us — that 
is  to  say,  they  survive  only  in  a  distorted  form  in  the  Un- 
dines, nymphs,  and  dryads  of  the  creeds  we  know. 

I  imagine  that  the  tree  oracles  of  Greece  portray  this 
stage  of  transition  rather  than  real  fetichism.  The  power 
of  divination  which  belonged  to  them  was  common  to  the 
whole  grove,  and  not  to  any  particular  tree  in  it ;  this,  at 
any  rate,  seems  to  have  been  the  general  rule.  All  the 
trees  of  Dodona,  for  example,  carried  the  message  of 
Zeus ;  nay,  it  was  not  so  much  the  trees  themselves 
which  did  this  as  the  wind  which  moved  them.  And  yet 
there  was  likewise  here  a  remnant  of  individual  tree 
worship ;  for  we  read  also  of  one  particular  oak,  peculiarly 
sacred  to  Zeus,  bigger  than  all  the  other  trees  of  the 
wood,  and  remaining  ever  green  all  the  year  round. 
Even  a  fragment  of  this  tree  could  prophesy,  for  it  was  a 
piece  of  this  which  Athene  placed  in  the  prow  of  Jason's 
ship  'Argo,'  and  that  figure-head  was  as  a  pilot  to  the 
Argonauts  throughout  their  voyage. 

The  rivers  change  in  their  way  as  the  trees  in  theirs. 
They  turn  first  into  the  mists  which  rise  from  the  stream, 
no  longer  tangible  and  fixed  in  form,  but  formless  beings 
— apsaras,  as  they  were  called  in  Indian  mythology,  who 
anon  float  up  into  heaven  and  mingle  with  the  clouds. 
The  apsaras  (which  means  the  formless  ones)  are,  in  later 
mythologies,  spoken  of  as  if  they  were  nymphs ;  but  this 
is  after  the  anthropomorphic  spirit  has  touched  them ;  at 
first,  as  their  name  well  shows,  they  were  nothing  so  cor- 
poreal as  the  nymphs.  In  this  stage  of  belief,  man's 


94  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

worship  is  passing  on  to  a  race  of  beings  who  are  at  best 
but  half  embodied;  who  are  not  wholly  ideal,  and  yet  not 
in  the  strict  sense  material.  The  mist  rises  up,  becomes 
the  cloud,  mingles  with  the  air.  While  still  on  earth  it 
was  the  nymph  or  faun.  The  clouds  in  heaven  are  the 
gandharvas  (Vedic),  the  centaurs;  in  the  North  they  are 
the  Valkyriur,  Odhinn's  swan  maidens.  Aphrodite,  the 
foam-born,  and  Athene,  at  first  Tritogeneia  (water-born) 
and  afterwards  the  Queen  of  the  Air,  are  of  the  same 
confraternity.1 

As  it  was  the  mist  arising  from  the  Delphic  stream 
which  sent  the  priestess  into  her  holy  madness,  we  may 
in  the  matter  of  oracular  gift  liken  these  exhalations  of 
the  rivers  to  the  winds  which  blow  through  groves  such  as 
that  of  Dodona. 

No  need  to  tell  how  numerous  were  and  are  these 
half-earthy  divinities  in  India,  in  Greece,  in  heathen 
Germany,  among  the  Celts  and  Slavs.  Their  name  is 
legion — fauns,  dryads,  nereids,  nymphs,  Undines,  gand- 
harvas, and  (more  expressive  than  all  other  names) 
apsaras,  formless  ones.2  They  are  presented  to  us  by 
art  as  beings  with  human  shape,  sometimes  mixed  of 
human  and  animal ;  others  (the  dryads,  for  example)  are 
of  human  and  vegetable  nature  conjoined  ;  in  the  heart  of 
the  people  they  have  scarcely  a  shape,  but  ara  a  presence 
only — the  presence  of  their  old  friends  the  forest  and  the 
stream.  The  doubtfulness  of  art  concerning  their  shape 
and  nature  portrays  the  uncertainty  of  popular  thought 


1  See  Chapter  IV. 

2  It  is,  on  the  whole,  exceptional  to  find  these  fountain  beings  of  the 
masculine  gender.      In  Greece,  however,  the  rivers  were  generally  male, 
the  lakes  female.     This,  I  say,  must  be  looked  upon  as  rather  peculiar.     It 
is  noticeable  that  the  gandharvas  of  Indian  myth  may  be  of  both  sexes, 
but  the  centaurs  are  always  represented  as  males.     When  the  fountain 
nymph  is  associated  with  that  idealised  fount  which  is  known  in  myth  as 
the  fountain  of  life,  she  becomes  the  Fate  (Parca,  Mcera,  or  Norn).     The 
Scandinavian   Norn  is  not  distinguishable  from  the  Valkyria  ;   Fates,  as 
fees,   fairies,  returned    again  to  their  simpler  universal  character.     The 
Mome  are  connected  with  the  Celtic  Maine,  from  mar,  meir,  simply  a  '  maid.' 


MUSIC  BORN   OF  STREAMS.  95 

about  them.  Atalanta  is  one  of  the  most  typical  of  these 
stream  maidens.  She  was  born  on  Mount  Parthenon  by 
the  banks  of  a  river.  By  a  stroke  of  her  lance  she  once 
made  water  spring  from  the  rock.1  Her  name  (drdXXw) 
expresses  the  leaping  water. 

Arcadia,  where  the  old  beliefs  were  the  longest  lived, 
was  the  great  home  of  nymph  worship.  Of  the  same  race 
as  the  nymphs  were  the  Muses.  They  were  called  nymphs 
sometimes.  They  too  were  originally  streams.2 

Certainly  one  of  the  most  beautiful  among  ancient 
beliefs  is  that  which  has  associated  the  discovery  of  music 
with  the  sound  of  waters.  Next  in  importance  after  the 
invention  of  writing  comes,  it  seems  to  me,  this  art,  the 
production  of  harmonised  sound.  In  respect  of  its  sponta- 
neity it  stands  midway  between  drawing  and  writing. 
The  first  is  a  purely  imitative  art,  and,  so  far  as  we  can 
tell,  spontaneous  from  human  nature.  Writing  is  so  little 
spontaneous  that  it  has  been  invented  almost  accidentally, 
and  once  found  has  been  passed  on  from  nation  to  nation 
and  not  rediscovered.  Music  is  more  simple  than  writing, 
and  may  have  several  different  sources.  The  melody  in 
the  vibration  of  a  single  stretched  string,  as  of  a  strung 
bow,  might  easily  be  noticed.  Traditionally,  music  has 
always  been  considered  an  imitative  art,  like  drawing; 
the  vibrating  string  was  supposed  to  mimic  some  melo- 
dious sound  in  nature  ;  and  among  the  many  which  we 
hear — rustling  of  leaves,  the  cries  of  animals  in  hollow 
distance,  echoes  from  caves,  and  the  wind  amid  pine  trees, 
or  any  of  those  softened  murmurs  which  come  to  us  from 
the  depth  of  the  forest — none  have  been  found  so  impres- 
sive as  the  music  of  waters.  The  moaning  of  the  waves 
round  the  shore  gave  rise  to  the  myth  of  the  sirens  ;  and, 
whatever  the  truth  may  have  been,  the  Greek  undoubtedly 
believed  that  some  stream  of  Pieria  or  of  Helicon  had  given 

1  Pans.  iii.  24,  §  2. 

2  The  Lydians  called  the  Muses  vv^ai  (Steph.  Dyz.  s.v.  T6pfa&os  ;  Pho« 
tius,  S.  V.  Nu/i</>cu). 


96  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BE  ,IEF. 

birth  to  Greek  music.  By  these  banks  the  Doric  shepherd 
first  learnt  to  string  his  lyre. 

Or  be  it  that  music  arose  with  Pan  and  the  Arcadians, 
where  too  the  worship  of  streams  most  prevailed.  The 
flute  of  all  instruments  best  suggests  the  bubbling  sound 
of  brooks.  Perhaps  the  use  of  the  lyre,  the  instrument  of 
Apollo  and  Hermes,  was  only  a  higher  order  of  music 
which  came  in  with  the  worship  of  these  gods  and  super- 
seded the  music  of  the  pipe.  If  that  be  so  then  the 
contest  with  Marsyas  is  the  rivalry  between  the  old  music 
and  the  new,  expressing  a  deeper  rivalry  in  creed  and 
manners ; 1  for  the  melodies  of  the  flute  or  the  pan-pipes 
are  those  of  contemplative  lives  and  dreamy  ease,  but 
Apollo  was  the  introducer  of  war  music  and  of  the  prean. 

The  sober  truth  about  Marsyas'  skin  was,  I  suspect, 
that  it  was  a  sheepskin  placed  in  a  certain  river  in  Asia 
Minor  in  such  a  way  that  the  water  running  through  it 
gave  it  a  tuneful  sound ;  not  less,  however,  is  Marsyas  the 
typical  river  god,  who  sets  up  his  earthly  music  in  despite 
of  the  airs  of  heaven. 

The  sound  of  this  plaintive  early  music  of  nature,  and 
the  thought  of  the  simple  Arcadian  worship  of  the 
nymphs  and  satyrs,  might  well  give  men  a  fondness  for 
the  days  gone  by,  and  make  them  contrast  favourably  the 
old  nature  worship  with  the  worship  of  gods  after  they 
had  become  transformed  into  personalities.  I  will  not  say 
that  the  gods/  when  they  had  grown  personal  and  active, 
were  at  first,  in  any  moral  sense,  the  superiors  of  these 
peaceful  deities  of  stream  and  mountain.  At  first  the  god 
who  represented  merely  the  power  of  will  without  its 
moral  responsibility  was  a  bad  substitute  for  those  early 
will-less  things,  the  deified  phenomena  of  nature ;  just  as  a 
child  is  a  better  thing  to  contemplate  than  a  young  man 
under  the  sway  of  his  passions  in  their  force.  We  can 
have  small  reverence  for  the  new  usurping  Zeus  of  the 

1  See  Prof.  Percy  Gardner,  '  Greek  River  Worship,'  Trs.  of  Rvy.  Soc,  Lit. 
vol.  xi. 


MUSIC  BORN  OF  STREAMS. 


97 


'  Prometheus  Vinctus.'  And  this  is  why  the  poet  in  that 
play  gives  us  so  beautiful  a  picture  of  the  nature  god, 
Ocean,  and  the  nymphs,  which  are  the  river  mists,  coming 
to  sympathise  with  the  Titan  in  his  sufferings.  And,  as 
against  Zeus  the  usurper,  Prometheus  appeals  to  all  the 
divinities  who  are  the  pure  expression  of  outward  things — to 
the  swift-winged  breezes ;  the  deep,  uncounted,  laughing 
waves ;  the  all-seeing  eye  of  the  sun  ;  and  earth,  the  mother 
of  all. 


98  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 


CHAPTEE  III. 

THE   ARYAS. 

ONE  of  the  singers  of  the  Big-  Veda  relates  to  us  the  birth 
of  Agni,  the  fire,  and  its  attendant  circumstances.  The 
fire  itself  is  produced  by  the  rubbing  of  two  sticks  ;  and 
so,  naturally  enough,  we  are  told  that  these  are  the 
parents  of  the  god.  But,  behold!  the  fire  seizes  upon 
these  same  sticks  and  consumes  them  ;  so  Agni  is  scarce 
born  when  he  devours  those  who  brought  him  forth. 
This  is  a  terrible  truth  to  be  obliged  to  tell. 

This  deed  now  make  I  known,  0  earth,  O  heaven 
The  son  new-born  devours  his  parents.1 


poet  is  shocked,  as  he  well  may  be,  at  the  thought  of 
such  a  parricide,  and  would  fain  not  tell  the  story  but 
that  he  knows  it  true.  And  so  he  only  adds,  with 
humility  of  heart  — 

But  I,  a  mortal,  cannot  gauge  a  god  ; 
Agni  knows  and  does  the  right. 

Could  anything  better  than  such  a  passage  as  this 
express  the  condition  of  a  belief  which  is  dealing  still 
with  the  phenomena  of  sense,  and  which  has  nevertheless 
got  some  way  in  the  apprehension  of  moral  truths  ;  which 
is,  in  fact,  well  advanced  in  the  second  phase  of  belief,  but 
not  yet  past  it  ?  First  observe  how  completely  we  have  here 
got  beyond  the  earliest  fetich  worship  and  those  beliefs 
akin  to  fetichism  which  we  discussed  in  the  last  chapter. 
Agni  is  not  simply  a  material  thing.  He  is  certainly 

1  Big-  Veda,  x.  7,  9. 


AGNI  THE   PIKE  GOD.  99 


nothing  which  can  be  touched  and  handled;  he  cannot 
even  be  fully  apprehended  by  the  senses ;  he  is  a  generali- 
sation, and  therefore  in  part  an  idea  only.  Agni  is  not 
one  single  flame,  but  then  neither  is  he  an  abstract  god 
of  fire.  He  is  both  one  and  many  flames,  and  to  his 
character  still  clings  the  character  of  his  element.  It  is  a 
fact  that  the  flame  consumes  the  wood  which  gave  it  life — 
the  father  who  created  it  and  the  mother  who  bore  it. 
Being  so  certain  a  fact,  it  must  be  told.  Still  Agni  is  a 
divinity  and  knows  what  is  right.  The  notion  of  righteous- 
ness attaches  to  the  god  before  he  has  clothed  himself 
in  a  human  character  or  become  subject  to  the  4aws  of 
man. 

To  the  fetich  worshipper  the  stick  which  produced  the 
fire  would  have  been  a  god.  Nay,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  many  among  the  contemporaries  of  this  poet  of  the 
Rig-Veda,  and  many  in  long  subsequent  times,  did  worship 
as  a  god  the  fire  drill,  or  swastika.  This  became  in  after 
years  personified  in  the  person  of  Prometheus.1  While  to 
that  same  fetich  worshipper  the  fire  itself  would  have 
been  too  abstract  and  intangible  a  substance  to  be  made 
into  a  divinity.  To  the  poet  priest  who  chaunted  this 
Yedic  hymn  it  was  quite  otherwise.  The  wood  itself  was 
mortal,  for  the  wood  itself  was  material;  and  just  because 
the  fire  was  not  material,  but  so  subtle  and  mysterious, 
just  because  it  appealed  so  much  to  his  imaginative 
faculties,  it  was  made  into  a  god,  and  Agni  was 
worshipped.  In  the  Vedic  hymns  Agni  is  often  called 
c  an  immortal  born  of  mortals.'2 

I  do  not  pretend  that  the  Vedic  worshipper  is  always 

1  See  Kuhn,  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,  where  the  myth  of  Prometheus 
springing  from  the  pramantha,  or  fire  drill  (also  '  butter  churn  '),  is  very 
beautifully  worked  out ;  also  in  the  Zeitschr.  fiir  very.  Spr.  xx.  201.     The 
swastika  symbol   ^fi,  so  well  known  on   Buddhist  monuments,  has  been 
interpreted  as  this  fire  drill ;  it  has  also,  however,  been  interpreted  as  the 
symbol  of  the  sun.     See  E.  Thomas  and  Percy  Gardner,  in  the  Numismatic 
Chronicle  for   1880.    Schwartz  (Urspr.  der  Myth.)  connects  Prometheus 
with  the  whirlwind. 

2  B.  V.  iii.  29,  13 ;  x.  79,1. 

H  2 


100  OUTLINES  .OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

a  perfect  example  of  man  in  the  state  of  nature  worship. 
Nor  do  I  mean  to  say  that  Agni  always  adheres  so  strictly, 
as  here  he  does,  to  his  true  character.  The  Yedic  hymns 
are  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  poems  composed  at 
various  times — intervals  of  hundreds  of  years  even  be- 
tween some  of  them — and  handed  down  from  age  to  age 
by  oral  tradition  only.  They  therefore  express  many  dif- 
ferent phases  of  belief.  Agni  sometimes  makes  us  forget 
that  he  is  the  fire.  Sometimes  he  seems  quite  human  as 
he  comes  down  to  drink  the  libations  which  are  poured  out 
for  him  and  joins  Indra  in  his  battles  against  the  enemy. 
Still  we  shall  scarcely  find  in  any  historic  creed  such 
speaking  examples  of  nature  worship  as  are  to  be  met 
with  throughout  the  pages  of  the  Yedic  hymns.  Nor, 
perhaps,  does  any  Yedic  god  illustrate  more  fully  in  his 
character  the  various  influences  of  sensation  upon  belief 
than  does  this  god  of  fire. 

In  the  instance 'just  chosen  we  have  seen  the  curb 
which  external  experience  puts  upon  the  satisfaction  of 
the  moral  sense.  Let  us  now  look  at  the  matter  from  the 
other  side,  and  see  what  a  point  of  spiritual  and  moral 
idealism  may  be  reached  without  any  departure  from  need- 
ful adherence  to  outward  fact,  without  leaving  the  region 
of  externals  and  '  those  things  which  nature  herself  will 
have  set  forth.'  In  another  hymn,  earlier  in  date  probably 
than  the  hymn  previously  quoted,  there  is  again  allusion 
made  to  Agni's  birth  from  the  wood.  But  in  this  con- 
nection we  find  that  the  god  had  likewise  a  parentage  in 
the  clouds,  where  he  was  born  in  the  form  of  lightning. 
6 1  will  tell  (or  have  told),  Agni,  thy  old  and  new  births.' ! 
The  new  birth  is  from  the  wood ;  the  old  birth  was  from 
the  clouds.  The  god,  we  see,  lived  first  in  heaven,  and 
was  there  doubtless  long  before  the  race  of  man  was  seen 
here  below.  But  somehow  Agni  descended  from  heaven 

1  R.  V.  i.  20.  Notice  in  this  hymn  also  for  immediate  and  future  use 
how  Agni  was  born  of  the  seven  streams  (vv.  3,  4),  did  not  lie  concealed 
there  (9),  and  became  a  protector  by  his  shining  in  the  house  (15,  18). 


AGNI.  101 

and  became  imprisoned  in  the  wood,  whence  the  act  of 
man — first  taught  him  by  Manu  ' — can  set  Agni  free.  This 
re-birth  from  the  wood  is  in  very  truth  an  incarnation  of 
the  fire  god,  for  man  too,  we  know,  was  descended  from  the 
tree ;  his  flesh  is  made  from  the  wood.  Wherefore  Agni 
clothes  himself  not  only  in  a  material  but  in  a  carnal  form 
when  he  comes  to  earth. 

Agni's  birth  in  heaven  was  wondrous,  miraculous 
even.  '  Scarce  born,  he  filled  the  two  worlds ' — that  of  the 
heaven,  namely,  and  of  the  earth.  This  is  an  image, 
perhaps,  of  the  lightning  flashing  suddenly,  and  seeming 
to  fill  all  the  space  of  air ;  or,  perhaps,  it  is  the  red  of 
morning,  for  that  too  is  called  Agni ;  or  may  be,  again,  it 
is  the  fire  of  the  sun  itself.  In  such  an  aspect  of  his 
being,  the  heavenly  aspect,  Agni  is  everything  that  is 
great :  in  moral  strength  as  in  physical  force  he  stands 
next  to  Indra,  far  before  any  other  divinity.  And  yet, 
for  all  that,  Agni  consents  to  become  imprisoned  in  the 
wood ;  he  has  a  life  on  earth  and  shares  the  toils  and 
troubles  of  man.  He  is,  on  this  account,  among  all  the 
celestials,  the  god  who  cares  most  for  human  kind.  '  Pro- 
tect us,'  the  priest  calls  out  to  him  in  need,  f  protect  us 
by  thy  shining  in  the  house.'  We  know  how  dearly 
cherished  was  that  protection  of  the  fire  god.  The  most 
sacred  function  in  the  domestic  life  of  the  Aryas  was  the 
keeping  alive  the  house  fire  ;  the  duty  of  doing  this  was 
always  assigned  to  the  paterfamilias,  and  that  which 
made  men  most  desirous  for  heirs  male,  and  made  them, 
if  they  had  none  of  their  body,  seek  to  gain  one  by  adop- 
tion, was  the  wish  that  the  same  fire  should  be  kept 
alive  when  they  were  gone.  Luck  would  desert  the  house, 
and  the  dead  father  would  suffer  in  the  other  world,  if  the 

1  Manu  (the  thinker)  is  the  typical  first  man,  and  the  same  with  the 
Greek  Minos  (Benfey,  Hermes,  Minos  n.  Tartaros).  If  we  do  not  accept 
Kuhn's  origin  for  Prometheus  he  too  would  be  an  equivalent  of  Manu. 
Prometheus  and  Manu  perform  the  same  office  in  respect  to  fire.  Manu 
and  Minos  are  of  course  lawgivers ;  so  are  Yama  and  Yima  (Zend)  also 
types  of  the  first  man. 


102  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

fire  went  out;  just  in  the  same  way  that  in  earlier  modes 
of  thought  luck  was  fancied  to  desert  the  family  or  the 
Tillage  if  the  house  tree  or  the  village  tree  died  down,  or 
if  the  water  of  the  fetich  stream  ran  dry. 

Another  sacred  duty  was  observed  when  the  flame  of 
sacrifice  was  kindled,  and  again,  in  another  shape,  Agni 
appeared  on  earth.  On  this  flame  libations  were  poured 
of  the  intoxicating  soma  l  juice,  the  sacramental  drink  of 
Vedic  Indians.  Agni  was  invited  to  partake  of  this  liba- 
tion ;  and  as  the  flame  licked  up  the  drink  Agni  was  said, 
in  the  language  of  the  Yedas,  to  take  his  share  of  the 
sacrifice,  to  drink  of  the  soma.  After  this  he  sprang  up 
heavenward  and  vanished  in  air ;  he  had  gone  back  to  his 
celestial  home.  Thus  man  having  first  set  Agni  free 
from  his  prison  house  the  wood,  was  likewise  the  means 
whereby  the  god  reached  once  more  the  mansions  of  the 
blessed. 

There  was  one  sacrifice  more  rare  and  more  solemn 
than  the  daily  enkindling  of  straw  or  pouring  of  soma 
upon  the  flame ;  this  was  when  the  dead  man  was  burnt 
upon  the  pyre  and  offered  up,  as  it  were,  unto  the  god  of 
fire.  Agni  received  the  soul  and  bore  it  up  to  heaven.2 

Thus  in  every  way  Agni  is  shown  as  a  messenger 
between  heaven  and  earth  :  he  comes  down  in  the  light- 
ning and  he  returns  in  the  flame  of  sacrifice.  He  is 
constantly  invited  to  call  the  gods  down  to  the  feast 
which  is  preparing  for  them  at  the  altar.  He  only  among 
the  heavenly  ones  is  seen  to  devour  what  is  offered  to  him. 

And,  again,  Agni  may  be  sometimes  the  internal 
flame,  the  source  of  all  'passion,  of  the  passion  of  passions 

1  Asclepias  acida  is  the  botanical  name  of  this  plant.     From  its  juice 
can  be  concocted  an  alcoholic  drink  which  was  much  cherished  by  the 
Indians  and  Persians  (by  the  latter  called  lioma},  and  which  played  an 
important  part  in  their  ritual.  The  soma  drink  was  a  sacramental  draught, 
and  as  such  corresponded  to  the  mystic  millet  water  (kykeon)  of  the 
Eleusinian  celebrations. 

2  Of  burning  the  dead,  and  the  beliefs  which  attach  to  that  custom, 
more  hereafter  (Ch.  VI.) 


AGNI.  103 

to  primeval  man,  the  most  sacred  of  his  emotions,  love. 
Soma  is  the  god  of  wine,  Agni  of  the  other  great  motive 
power  in  men's  lives  and  beliefs.1  This  emotion  being 
accounted  in  primitive  language  especially  holy,  therefore 
Agni  is  essentially  the  holy  one.  I  would  not  wrest  to 
any  fanciful  resemblance  the  points  of  likeness  between 
this  ancient  divinity  and  the  later  avatars  of  Indian  and 
Christian  creeds ;  but  it  is  evident  the  god  stands  ready 
to  take  the  part  afterwards  given  to  Vishnu.  And  whether 
or  no  we  choose  to  consider  that  the  ideals  which  Vishnu, 
and  still  more  Christ,  express  are  implanted  in  human 
nature,  it  is  evident  that,  without  passing  beyond  his 
legitimate  functions  as  a  nature  god,  Agni  is  able  to 
realise  some  of  the  qualities  of  such  an  ideal.  He  is  in- 
carnate, after  a  fashion,  being  born  of  the  wood ;  he  is,  in 
a  peculiar  sense,  the  friend  of  man ;  he  is  the  messenger 
and  mediator  between  heaven  and  earth ;  and  lastly,  he  is 
in  a  special  manner  the  holy  one,  the  fosterer  of  strong 
emotion,  of  those  mystic  thoughts  which  arise  when  in 
any  way  the  mind  is  violently  swayed.  Agni  is  all  this 
without  laying  aside  the  elemental  nature  in  which  he  is 
clothed.  And  this  one  example  may  prepare  us  for  the 
manysidedness  of  nature  gods  : — 

Agni  is  messenger  of  all  the  world   * 

Skyward  ascends  his  flame,  the  Merciful, 
With  onr  libations  watered  well ; 
And  now  the  red  smoke  seeks  the  heavenly  way, 
And  men  enkindle  Agni  here. 


We  make  of  thee  onr  herald,  Holy  One ; 
*    Bring  down  the  gods  unto  our  feast. 
O  son  of  might,  and  all  who  nourish  man ! 
Pardon  us  when  on  you  we  call. 

>  See  Ch.  I. 


104  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMTTIVE  BELIEF. 

Thoa,  Agni,  art  the  ruler  of  the  house  ; 

Thou  at  the  altar  art  our  priest. 
O  purifier,  wise  and  rich  in  good, 

0  sacrificer,  bring  us  safety  now.1 

In  one  respect  Agni  is  different  from  the  other  gods. 
He  alone,  almost,  is  independent  of  climatic  influences. 
Not  so  the  god  of  the  wind,  or  of  the  sun,  or  of  the  sea. 
People  may  live  near  the  water,  and  see  for  ever  before 
them  the  broad,  level,  unploughed  plain  ;  or  they  may 
live  inland  in  close-shut  valleys,  watered  only  by  one 
small  stream,  on  whom  '  the  swart  star  sparely  looks ; '  or 
they  may  live  in  the  perpetual  shade  of  woods,  or  on 
broad  arid  plains  where  the  sun's  heat  is  well-nigh 
intolerable ;  or  in  dark  frosty  lands,  where  the  sun  dies 
during  one  part  of  his  yearly  round  and  is  for  this  period 
never  seen  by  night  or  day.  It  is  impossible  that  the 
gods  of  nature  can  remain  the  same  with  peoples  exposed 
to  such  varying  influences.  With  fetiches  it  is  different. 
The  differences  between  fetich  and  fetich  are  noticeable, 
indeed,  within  a  small  locality,  but  in  the  sum,  among  a 
large  body  of  people,  they  may  be  expected  to  balance 
one  another.  The  differences  of  climatic  nature  gods  are 
wide  and  cannot  be  bridged  over.  We  have  but  to  study 
and  interpret  ^he  characters  of  some  of  the  great  sun -gods 
of  Eastern  lands — Ra,  say,  or  Moloch — to  Understand 
the  sort  of  sun  these  lands  lay  beneath ;  and  we  have  only 
to  remember  the  differences  in  latitude  and  in  the  face  of 
nature  between  these  Eastern  countries  and  the  countries 
of  Europe  to  see  why  the  sun  god  is  so  different  a  being 
in  the  creed  of  the  Asiatic  to  what  he  is  in  the  creed  of 
the  European. 

It  is  desirable,  therefore,  that,  before  we  come  to 
examine  any  of  the  known  creeds  of  the  Ind<*-European 
race,  we  should  try  to  gain  some  idea  of  the  earlier 
climatic  influences  to  which  its  ancestors  were  subjected, 

1  B.  V.  vii.  16. 


THE  CKADLE  OF  THE  ARYAN  RACES. 


105 


while  they  were  still  one  people,  at  the  time  in  which  the 
germs  of  later  creeds  were  but  beginning  to  put  forth 
shoots.  Five  distinct  *  languages,'  in  the  Biblical  sense 
of  that  word,  have,  it  is  well  known,  issued  from  the 
Aryan  nest — namely,  the  Aryas  proper  or  later  Aryas, 
the  Indo-Persic  family,  the  Grseco-Italic,  the  Celtic,  the 
Teutonic,  the  Lithuano-Slavonic.  Some  of  these  have 
kept  no  memory  of  that  first  home ;  some  have  be- 
lieved themselves  autochthonous,  or  children  of  the  soil, 
in  the  land  where  history  discovers  them.  Others  (the 
Norsemen,  for  example,  out  of  the  Teutonic  family) 
have  had  some  vague  tradition  of  an  Eastern  origin ; 
and  one  people,  the  Persians,  have  a  tolerably  clear  and 
consistent  legend  of  the  changes  of  home  which  preceded 
their  settlement  in  Iran.  But  of  course  the  story  puts  on 
a  mythic  disguise.  It  is  related  by  their  Zend  Avesta  l 
that  the  good  and  great  spirit,  Ahura-Mazda,  created  in 
succession  sixteen  paradises  ;  but  that  the  evil  one,  Angra- 
Mainyus,  came  after  him,  like  the  sower  of  tares,  and 
polluted  these  paradises  one  after  the  other.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  trace  out  a  clear  line  of  travel  by  the  identifica- 
tion of  these  places.  Some  cannot  be  identified;  the 
order  of  them  has  been  misplaced.  But  interpreting  the 
story  by  the  rules  which  must  guide  us  in  leading  mythic 
language,  we  are,  I  think,  justified  in  seeing  the  evidence 
of  a  passage  at  some  former  time  from  the  high  land  of 
Bactriana  toward  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  this  theory  of  an 
original  home  in  Bactriana  would  suit  with  what  we  know 
of  the  movements  of  other  Aryan  races. 

To  the  weight  of  this  traditionary  evidence  we  must 
add  the  cumulative  testimony  of  a  number  of  small  coinci- 
dences, which,  though  each  is  slight  in  itself,  afford  not 
inconsiderable  evidence  in  the  sum.  If  we  find  that  the 


1  First  Fargard.  Pictet  (Les  Origines  Indo-Europeennes,  ch.  i.)  has  de- 
voted some  space  and  much  ingenuity  to  an  endeavour  to  trace  the  course 
of  the  migrations  made  by  the  Iranian  people.  With  what  success  I  am  no 
judge.  Darmesteter  repudiates  the  attempt  (Avesta,  Intr.) 


106  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

species  of  metals,  flowers,  animals,  trees,  which  the  old 
Aryans  were  acquainted  with  are  those  which  are  to  be 
fonnd  in  Bactriana ;  if  we  find  that  the  early  life  of  these 
Aryas  was  of  the  kind  likely  to  be  adopted  in  a  country 
such  as  that  is,  and  under  the  influences  of  sun  and  sky 
which  that  land  is  subject  to,  we  are  justified,  I  think,  in 
assuming  the  Persian  tradition  to  be  a  true  one.  The 
way  in  which  we  may  rediscover  the  social  and  natural 
surroundings  of  the  proto-Aryas  is  that  very  method 
whereby,  in  a  former  chapter,  we  arrived  at  certain  con- 
clusions touching  the  knowledge  which  our  ancestors  had 
of  horned  cattle,  of  a  sky  god,  Dyaus,  and  of  the  relation- 
ship of  a  daughter.  For  the  method  which  was  there 
applied  to  but  one  or  two  things  may,  it  is  evident,  be 
extended  to  all  the  region  of  possible  knowledge.  The 
late  M.  Pictet  has  used  this  method  with  eminent  talent 
and  success ;  and  amid  many  other  conclusions  concerning 
the  old  Aryas  he  arrives  at  this,  that  their  first  traceable 
home  must  have  been  in  the  Bactrian  land. 

This  country  is  the  one  which  lies  westward  from  the 
Beloor  Tagh,  northward  from  the  Hindoo  Koosh  and  all 
the  region  of  barren  Afghanistan.  It  is  a  land  once  cele- 
brated among  the  countries  of  the  world  for  its  fertility, 
and  though  it  has  fallen  now  on  evil  days  it  is  still  one  of 
the  best  cultivated  parts  of  Central  Asia,  in  both  a  mate- 
rial and  a  moral  sense.1  The  high  ranges  behind  them 
cut  off  the  inhabitants  from  all  communication  with  the 
east  and  south.  In  the  hills  innumerable  streams  are 
born,  which,  flowing  westward,  go  to  swell  the  waters  of 
the  Oxus  and  the  Jaxartes.  The  hills,  the  streams,  and 
the  valleys  which  these  last  have  hollowed  out  give  a 
peculiar  character  to  the  scenery,  a  character  of  perpetual 
change.  'Bactriana,5  says  Quintus  Curtius,2  *  is  in  its 
nature  a  very  varied  land.  In  some  parts  trees  abound, 
and  the  vines  yield  fruit  remarkable  for  its  size  and  sweet- 

1  Bokhara  is  at  this  day  a  centre  of  Mohammedan  learning.      2  vii.  4. 


BACTRIA.  107 

Innumerable    fountains   water    the    fertile    soil. 

lere  the  climate  is  favourable  they  sow  corn ;  else- 
where the  ground  furnishes  pasture  for  the  flocks.5  And 
a  traveller  of  more  recent  date,  Sir  Alexander  Burnes — 
one  of  the  very  few  who  in  modern  days  have  penetrated 
to  this  region — speaks  in  much  the  same  terms  of  the 
variety  in  the  aspect  of  nature,  though  he  has  less  to  say 
about  the  fertility  of  the  soil.1  From  his  account  it  is 
interesting  to  learn  how  many  of  the  trees  are  familiar  to 
European  eyes;  even  the  maythorn  is  to  be  met  with 
there,  though  scarcely  anywhere  else  in  Asia. 

Now  it  so  happens  that  of  the  great  monarchies  of 
the  ancient  world,  the  earliest,  those  which  seem  to  have 
passed  on  their  traditions  to  all  which  followed,  arose  in 
lands  the  very  opposite  of  the  one  here  described.  Egypt 
and  Chaldsea  have  close  resemblances  in  the  main  cha- 
racteristics of  their  scenery  and  position.  Each  is  by 
comparison  a  narrow  strip  of  cultivable  soil  cut  out  of  the 
desert,  and  each  owes  its  fertility  altogether  to  one  cause, 
the  great  river  or  rivers  which  flow  through  its  midst.  In 
Egypt  the  irrigation  from  the  Nile  is  natural ;  in  the  land 
of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  irrigation  is  obtained  by  arti- 
ficial means  :  this  is  all  the  difference  between  the  two 
countries.  Both,  too,  are  singularly  rich,  and  their 
riches  seem  the  greater  in  comparison  with  the  barrenness 
and  poverty  which  lie  at  their  doors.  For  Egypt  and 
Chaldsea  are,  in  reality,  tracts  reclaimed  from  one  and  the 
same  desert — the  groat  infertile  belt  which  extends  half 
round  the  world,  stretching  from  the  borders  of  China  on 
the  east  to  the  western  coast  of  Africa.  Wherefore  in 
such  countries  as  Egypt  and  Chaldsea  everything  is 
present  which  is  likely  to  attach  the  people  to  the  soil  on 
which  they  live,  and  to  stay  their  imaginations  from  ever 
wandering  to  regions  beyond  those  which  they  know 

1  For  now  irrigation  has  to  be  effected  by  artificial  means,  and  where 
the  canals  have  fallen  into  disrepair  drought  has  ensued.  See  Expedition 
of  Lieut.  A. 


108  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

familia,rly.  Their  fertile  land  is  a  land  of  life,  but  all 
around  them  lies  the  country  of  death.  Such  a  state  of 
things  is  likely  to  beget  a  certain  dulness  in  the  fancy  and 
a  settled  routine  in  life  ;  everything  will  determine  men. 
to  a  fixed  society  and  government,  and  to  a  fixed  religion. 
The  great  river  is  at  hand  to  serve  for  the  oldest  and  chief 
god  of  the  land ;  the  impossibility  of  travel  rivets  tighter 
that  chain  of  association  and  of  reverence  and  of  fear 
which  holds  men  close  to  the  neighbourhood  of  their  fetich. 
All  these  effects  were  produced  in  Egypt  and  Chaldsea. 
Feeling  themselves  so  securely  fixed  in  their  home,  and 
generally  prosperous  there,  like  men  quibus  Jupiter  ipse 
nocere  non  potest,1  the  Egyptians  and  Chaldseans,  and  the 
successors  of  the  Chaldseans,  the  Assyrians,  gave  them- 
selves to  a  '  great  bravery  of  building,'  and  the  immense 
temples  and  tombs  which  arose  all  over  their  lands  became 
a  new  race  of  fetiches,  and  also  a  kind  of  sentries  and 
watch-towers  to  keep  the  people  where  they  were.  They 
were  contented,  but  they  were  slaves.  Their  rulers  were 
tyrants — the  temporal  rulers,  their  Barneses,  their  Tiglath 
Pilesers,  and  Sennacheribs — and  the  spiritual  kings,  their 
gods,  fiercest  and  most  cruel  of  all  of  whom  was  the  great 
sun  god,  Moloch,  c  the  king '  par  excellence.2 

The  home  of  the  Aryas,  on  the  contrary — a  land  of 
innumerable  streams  and  separate  valleys,  naturally  di- 
vided into  as  many  political  districts — would  be  incom- 
patible with  the  formation  of  a  great  monarchy  such  as 
those  which  sprang  up  in  Egypt  and  Assyria.  And  we 
know  that  the  beginnings  of  social  life  among  the  Aryas 
were  not  of  the  Asiatic  kind ;  their  political  unit  was  the 
villao-e,  a  cluster  of  homesteads,  that  is  to  say,  a  sort  of 
miniature  republic,  associated  under  certain  laws,  and 

1  The  Egyptian  priests,  Herodotus  tells  us,  descanted  to- him  of  the 
risk  of  depending  upon  Zeus  for  fertility.     They  were,  of  course,  right 
from  a  purely  experiential  point  of  view.    Can  we  doubt  that  the  respective 
characters  of  the  religions   of  Egypt   and  Greece  were  affected  by  the 
different  natures  of  their  gods  in  this  and  other  respects  1 

2  Moloch  is  melek,  a  king. 


THE  VILLAGE  COMMUNITY.  109 

each,  one  governed,  subject  to  these  laws  and  customs,  by 
its  individual  chief  or  head-man.  This  village  community 
is  the  germ  out  of  which  the  later  institutions  of  European 
statecraft  have  had  their  rise.  In  the  Indian  village,  in 
the  Russian. mir,  and  in  the  Swiss  canton,  we  see  it  in  a 
condition  nearest  to  its  original  purity. 

The  effects  of  this  beginning  of  social  life  among 
the  Aryas  has  been  visible  in  all  their  later  history ;  one 
of  the  chief  of  these  effects  has  been  that  they  have 
never  been  apt  to  form  themselves  into  very  great  or  per- 
manent monarchies.  The  kingdom  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians  under  Cyrus  might,  indeed,  seem  at  first  sight 
a  striking  exception  to  this  rule  ;  but  it  is  not  so  much  so 
as  it  appears.  Although  the  monarchy  of  Cyrus  certainly 
did  resemble  the  autocracies  of  Egypt  and  Babylon,  it 
could  never  have  come  into  existence  if  these  last  had  not 
preceded  it.  It  was  a  distinct  imitation  of  the  great 
Semitic  and  African  kingdoms,  not  a  natural  growth  ; 
and  it  was  only  achieved  by  un-Aryanising  the  people. 
The  foundation  of  the  permanent  rule  of  Cyrus  lay  in  the 
older  and  more  settled  monarchies  which  the  kingdom  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians  absorbed  into  itself.  Chaldsea 
and  Egypt  were  full  of  ancient  cities,  and  it  was  the 
possession  of  such  strongholds  as  were  to  be  found  there 
which  gave  its  stability  to  the  rule  of  the  AchscmenidsB. 
The  walled  towns  which  had  a  short  time  before  begun  to 
spring  up  in  the  land  of  the  Persians  themselves  were  built 
in  imitation  of  the  older  walled  towns  of  Chaldsea.  That 
this  was  the  case  is  very  well  shown  by  the  picture  which 
Herodotus  gives  us  l  of  the  condition  of  the  Medes  at  an 
earlier  time,  when  they  had  first  shaken  themselves  free 
from  the  Assyrian  yoke,  and  his  account  of  the  founda- 
tion of  their  native  line  of  kings.  For  a  long  time  these 
Medes  lived  in  separate  villages,  without  any  central 
authority,  and  lawlessness  prevailed  throughout  the  land. 

1  i.  96-98. 


110  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

At  length  Deioces,  the  son  of  Phraortes,  having  attained 
great  influence  by  his  justice  and  firmness,  succeeded  in 
having  himself  raised  to  the  throne.  Desiring  to  secure 
his  power,  he  caused  the  city  of  Ecbatana  to  be  built.  It 
was  beneath  the  walls  of  this,  its  first  city,  that  the  foun- 
dations of  the  Median  kingdom  were  laid. 

The  conditions  into  which  the  Medes  relapsed  so  soon 
as  they  had  shaken  off  the  Assyrian  yoke  might  be 
matched  in  a  hundred  examples  taken  from  the  history  of 
people  of  Aryan  stock  at  such  a  time  as  the  pressure  of 
some  firm  hand  had  been  removed. 

Just  in  the  same  way,  after  the  death  of  Charlemagne, 
the  Franldsh  nation  split  up  from  one  into  many  king- 
doms and  duchies.  So  did  almost  all  the  Teuton  peoples 
who  had  joined  in  the  invasions  of  the  Roman  Empire  in 
like  manner  split  up  when  the  fear  of  an  opposing  power 
no  longer  kept  them  together.  The  Goths  of  Spain  or  of 
Italy,  the  Lombards,  and  the  English  all  tell  the  same 
story  which  is  told  by  the  history  of  the  Medes. 

The  Aryan  religion  must  have  been  as  republican  and 
as  manysided,  as  was  the  social  life  of  the  people.  Each 
small  assemblage  of  houses  which  stood  beside  a  rivulet 
or  a  lake,  in  the  clearing  of  a  forest,  or  under  the  shadow 
of  a  hill,  was  a  world  unto  itself.  And  no  doubt  each 
village  had  its  own  fetich,  its  supernatural  protector,  in 
the  stream  or  tree  which  was  in  its  midst.  The  village 
tree  has  survived,  if  not  as  a  divinity,  at  the  very  least  as 
a  recognised  institution  almost  to  our  own  time.  The 
local  worship  of  mountains  and  of  streams  in  like  wise 
has  left  deep  traces  in  the  creeds  of  Europe.  If  the 
remains  of  fetichism  could  be  so  vital,  fetichism  itself 
must  have  had  a  lengthened  sway.  But  the  people  could 
never  have  become  the  Aryan  nation  had  their  notions  of 
unity  been  confined  to  the  local  fetich  and  the  village 
commune.  They  acquired  an  idea  of  a  wider  fellowship. 
They  spoke  a  common  tongue,  and  in  that  language  they 
acknowledged  themselves  as  one  people — the  aryas,  or 


DIVERSITIES  OF  CREED.  ]11 


noble  ones — in  contradistinction  to  the  barbarians,  'the 
inarticulate,5  or  to  the  turanians,  the  '  wanderers,'  who  for 
them  filled  up  the  roll  of  outer  humanity. 

The  beliefs  of  the  Aryas  expanded  with  their  policy;  or 
it  were  truer,  perhaps,  to  say  that  their  social  life  widened 
as  their  creed  widened.1  And  with  the  change  there  came 
to  the  front  the  higher  kind  of  gods  who  were  pan-Ar}  an, 
and  who  at  last  put  to  silence  the  older  but  lesser  village 
gods. 

Something  has  been  already  said  of  the  obvious  ad- 
vantage which,  in  respect  of  a  permanent  hold  on  men's 
minds,  the  elemental  religion  has  over  the  fetichism 
which  precedes  it — the  superiority  which  the  worship  of 
clouds,  or  skies,  or  suns,  or  storms  has  over  the  worship  of 
trees  and  rivers  and  mountains.  If  a  people  change  their 
home  they  cannot  take  the  fetich  with  them  ;  and  there- 
fore the  nation  will  be  without  a  god,  unless  either  a  new 
fetich  is  at  once  found  (which  is  scarce  likely)  or  men  are 
willing  to  worship  some  part  of  nature  which  cannot  be 
BO  easily  abandoned.  The  nation  is  almost  sure  in  such 
circumstances  to  turn  and  worship  the  great  elemental 
gods. 

But  even  if  the  people  do  not  leave  their  homes,  and 
only  coalesce  somewhat  in  national  life,  the  elemental  god 
has  still  an  immense  advantage  over  his  fetich  rival  in 
respect  of  his  universality.  He  alone  can  be  the  god  of 
the  whole  people.  Although  in  each  village  the  people  are 
still  most  inclined  to  fetichism,  and  the  village  stream  or 
tree  is  in  consequence  more  honoured  than  the  sun  or  the 
wind,  still  that  tree  or  stream  has  no  claim  to  reverence 
from  the  men  of  another  village.  They  have  probably  their 
individual  village  tree,  who,  rather  than  a  friend,  is  a 
rival  and  an  enemy  to  the  other  fetich.  When  neighbour 
communities  cease  being  at  war  and  become  friendly,  the 
•union  is  likely  to  be  signalised  by  the  sacrifice  to  each 

See  p.  69. 


112  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

others'  prejudices  of  the  rival  gods :  the  thing  they  now 
need  is  a  divinity  whom  all  have  worshipped  alike.  He 
must  be  something  higher  and  more  celestial  than  the 
fetich,  a  wider  Nature  god.  This  is,  in  fact,  an  instance 
exactly  parallel  to  that  seeming  paradox  of  reputation 
whereby  we  are  met  with  the  difficulty  that  the  greatest 
genius  is  never  first  in  repute  among  his  contemporaries. 
Why,  it  may  fairly  be  asked,  should  future  times  be  always 
so  much  more  discriminating  than  present  ones?  To 
which  the  answer,  of  course,  is  that  the  great  genius  would 
never  really  have  a  majority  of  suffrages  in  any  age,  but 
that  his  suffrages,  such  as  they  are,  go  on  accumulating 
from  age  to  age,  while  his  rival  of  one  generation,  the 
popular  writer  of  that  time,  puts  out  of  memory  his  rival 
of  a  previous  generation.  The  popular  writer,  for  the 
purposes  of  our  illustration,  represents  the  fetich  god,  for 
the  elemental  god  stands  the  genius,  and  for  the  rivalry 
of  different  ages  we  substitute  the  rivalry  of  different 
localities. 

Each  separate  village  in  old  Bactriana  had,  we  may 
suppose,  its  fetich  god,  while  the  gods  of  all  the  Aryan 
nations  were  the  sky  and  the  sun,  the  earth  and  the  sea. 
The  more  the  people  gravitated  together,  the  more  did 
these  universal  deities  come  to  the  front,  and  the  divini- 
ties of  fragments  of  the  people  fall  into  the  background. 
The  decisive  change  was  probably  made  when  the  migra- 
tions of  the  Ayras  began,  and  all  the  fetiches  had  to  be 
left  behind. 

For  hundreds  of  years  had  the  proto-Aryas  inhabited 
their  fertile  Bactrian  home,  until  they  grew  into  a  con- 
siderable nation ;  the  older  tribes  backed  against  the 
eastern  hills,  the  younger  extending  westward  into  the 
plain  as  far  as  the  borders  of  the  Caspian.1  At  length, 
either  because  they  grew  too  large  for  the  land  they  dwelt 
in  or  because  they  felt  more  and  more  the  pressure  of  alien 

1  See  Ch.  VL 


THE  MIGRATIONS   OF  THE  ARYAS.  113 

peoples — those  Tartar  races  who  still  form  the  population 
of  Central  Asia — from  what  cause,  indeed,  we  cannot  de- 
termine now,  they  broke  up  into  separate  nations,  which*, 
one  by  one,  set  off  upon  those  long  journey  ings  not  de- 
stined to  come  to  a  termination  until  some  at  least  among 
the  people  had  reached  the  very  ends  of  the  earth.  The 
fetich  god  could  be  no  protection  in  the  new  unknown 
world  to  which  the  travellers  turned.  But  the  sun  went 
with  them ;  he  even  pointed  the  way  they  were  to  travel 
as  he  passed  on  before  them  to  the  west.1  The  sky,  clear 
or  cloudy,  was  still  overhead  ;  the  ruddy  morn  and  evening 
showed  their  familiar  faces ;  the  pillar  of  cloud  went 
before  them  by  day,  and  the  pillar  of  fire  by  night ;  the 
storms  followed  them  on  their  path,  and  the  moon  with 
all  her  attendant  stars.  These,  therefore,  were  the  gods 
to  whom  henceforward  they  must  turn  to  pray. 

The  younger  tribes,  whom  we  saw  settled  to  the  west- 
ward,  were  the  first  to  migrate.  They  left  behind  them 
the  older  inhabitants,  the  Aryas  par  excellence,  from  whom 
afterwards  descended  the  Indians  and  Iranians.  But  even 
these  had  at  last  to  abandon  their  country.  Whatever 
the  reason  for  the  others'  departure,  theirs,  one  would 
suppose,  must  have  been  involuntary,  under  the  force  of 
superior  and  hostile  powers.  For  they  did  not  go  west- 
ward, but  crossed  the  steep  hills  which  were  behind  them. 
The  Iranians,  as  we  saw,  struggled  to  the  high  table-land 
of  Pamir,  which  tradition  afterwards  represented  as  the 
land  made  evil  by  Ahrimanes.  The  Indians  crossed  the 
Hindoo  Koosh  and  debouched  upon  the  plain  of  the  Indus ; 
and  it  was  during  their  residence  in  the  territory  of  the 
five  streams,  the  Panjab,2  that  these  Aryas  of  India  com- 
posed the  body  of  their  first  sacred  poetry — those  Vedic 
hymns  which  are  a  memorial  not  of  their  faith  only,  but 
also,  in  an  indirect  way,  of  the  still  earlier  Aryan  religion 
of  Bactria. 

1  Ibid. 

2  The  Ganges  is  unknown  to  the  Vedic  hymn- writers. 

I 


114  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

But  let  the  reader  be  upon  his  guard — upon  his  guard 
once  for  all — against  the  notion  that  any  distinct  doctrine 
of  mythology  can  be  gleaned  from  the  poems  of  the  Yeda. 
Something  has  already  been  said  of  the  difference  between 
mythology  and  religion,  so  far  as  to  show  how  the  pre- 
sence of  one  must  to  a  great  extent  preclude  that  of 
the  other.  Mythology,  in  a  manner,  precedes  religion. 
Mythology  is  an  interpretation  of  natural  phenomena, 
through  the  enkindiing  of  imagination  indeed,  and  with 
some  sense  of  worship  going  along  with  the  interpretation, 
but  by  men  not  in  that  state  of  strong  emotion  which  we 
may  distinctly  call  religious.  The  tales  of  mythology  are 
records  of  facts — of  .facts  seen,  no  doubt,  though  an  imagina- 
tive atmosphere,  but  yet  regarded  as  passing  events  and 
not  in  a  peculiar  relation  to  the  observer.  The  ego  of  the 
narrator  of  myths  is  not  vividly  present  in  his  conscious- 
ness. With  religion  and  with  the  literature  of  devotion  it 
is  very  different.  These  imply  an  intense  concentration 
of  thought  upon  the  spiritual  (unsensuous)  side  of  the 
external  phenomena :  they  imply  a  condition  of  feeling  in 
which  the  ego  is  of  pre-eminent  importance  in  relation  to 
all  outward  things,  in  which  the  external  world  is  re- 
garded or  neglected  in  exact  proportion  as  it  calls  out 
an  answering  emotion  from  the  human  heart.  The  Vedic 
poems  are  of  the  religious  kind  ;  they  are  distinctly  devo- 
tional in  character,  and  are  therefore  rightly  described  as 
hymns.  And  thus  being  intended  as  vehicles  of  feeling, 
not  as  the  records  of  events,  they  offer  a  marked  contrast 
to  those  epic  poems  which  are  our  earliest  authorities  for 
the  belief  of  most  other  members  of  the  Indo-European 
family — to  the  epos  of  Homer,  for  example,  and  the  eddas 
and  sagas  of  the  German  peoples.  This  gives  the  Yedas 
a  certain  poverty  on  the  mythologic  side ;  it  also  tends  to 
make  the  beliefs  which  they  record  seem  more  advanced 
in  development  than  they  really  are.  Yet,  for  all  that, 
the  Yedas  reveal  some  aspects  of  belief  more  primitive 
than  are  to  be  found  either  in  Greece  or  in  Scandinavia : 


RELIGIOUS   CHARACTER  OF  THE  VEDAS.  115 


some  facts  without  the  light  shed  by  which  the  religious 
history  of  the  Aryan  folk  would  have  remained  for  ever 
obscure. 

Professor  Max  Miiller  has  already  called  attention  to 
one  remarkable  phase  of  belief  which  the  Vedas  illustrate, 
and  which,  but  for  its  survival  in  these  hymns,  would 
perhaps  never  have  been  noticed.  He  has  called  this 
phase  henotheism,1  by  which  is  meant  the  worship  of  one 
god  out  of  the  pantheon  as  if  he  were  the  only  divinity, 
and  the  passing  on  then  to  pay  the  same  vows  and  honours 
to  another  deity.  Henotheism  expresses  quite  a  different 
tone- of  mind  from  monotheism,  and  arises  mainly,  as  in 
the  last  chapter  was  pointed  out,  from  the  shortness  of 
memory  which  leads  men  to  neglect  and  overlook  that 
phenomenon  which  is  not  actually  present,  and  so  to  forget 
for  a  time  the  god  whose  nature  is  bound  up  with  this 
phenomenon.  Wherefore  it  is  evident  that  in  the  Vedas, 
where  henotheism  is  so  rife,  we  have  got  most  near  to  the 
condition  of  belief  in  which  the  god  was  identified  with 
that  visible  power  of  nature  whence  he  took  his  name ; 
to  that  state  of  things  in  which  Indra  was  worshipped 
while  active,  but  forgotten  when  he  was  not  so.  Indra  is 
throughout  the  Vedas  really  the  sky  or  the  storm ;  and 
though  he  receives  the  general  titles  suited  to  a  universal 
ruler,  yet  when  we  see  him  in  action  his  deeds  are  those 
possible  to  a  storm  god  only.  Agni  is  in  verity  the  fire, 
and  his  ways  are  the  ways  of  that  element  alone. 

It  is  through  the  combination  of  this  genuine  poly- 
theism with  the  language  of  devotion  that  henotheism 
becomes  conspicuous.  Of  course  it  was  thought  that  the 
god  would  be  nattered  by  being  addressed  in  such  a  style 
of  adulation  as  if  he  only  were  the  lord  and  king.  But 
men  to  whom  all  the  gods  seemed  equally  present,  would 

What  I  have  called  pure  poli/theism,  is,  as  has  been  shown,  a  different 
je  of  belief  from  that  which  is  commonly  called  by  the  same  name, 
ris  pure  polytheism  is  in  the  most  intimate  relationship  to  hsnothcism 
(Ch.  I.) 

12 


116  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

have  felt  the  risk  of  offending  quite  as  much  the  god  who 
was  really  supreme.  If  there  were  anyone  like  Zeus, 
who  was  so  mighty  that  if  a  chain  were  suspended  from 
heaven,  and  he  were  at  one  end  and  all  the  other  gods 
were  pulling  at  the  other,  they  could  not  displace  him, 
then  henotheism  would  not  be  safe  ;  nor  would  it  be  pos- 
sible. If  there  were  no  personal  god  sitting  apart  and 
directing  all  the  rest,  if  every  god  were  (more  or  less) 
limited  within  his  own  sphere,  then  the  immoderate  desire 
to  obtain  the  special  gift  which  this  or  that  divinity  held 
in  hand,  the  carelessness  of  the  savages  about  the  future, 
and  their  natural  forgetfulness  that  there  were  other 
powers  and  other  gifts  beside  this  one,  would  far  outweigh 
the  fear  of  losing  some  subsequent  favour  of  a  rival  god. 
Henotheism,  then,  is  only  possible  in  a  certain  condition 
of  belief;  wherefore  the  discovery  of  it  in  a  conspicuous 
form  in  the  Yedas  is  a  guarantee  that  we  shall  find  much 
else  that  is  really  primitive  in  them. 

We  ought,  before  we  speak  of  the  actual  Yedic  creed, 
to  try  and  get  some  notion  of  the  pre-Vedic  one  which  all 
our  ancestors  had  in  common,  or  at  all  events  of  that  which 
the  Aryas  brought  with  them  to  their  Indian  home  before 
the  first  Vedic  hymn  was  raised.  All  the  Indo-European 
people  possessed  in  common,  as  we  have  seen,  a  sky  god, 
Dyaus,  whose  name,  connected  with  (if  not  sprung  from)  a 
root  div,  to  shine,  points  him  out  especially  as  the  bright 
heaven.  The  fact  that  those  first  cousins  of  Dyaus,  Zeus 
and  Jupiter,  have  little  in  their  natures  to  suggest  the 
bright  heaven  or  clear  sky,  might  lead  us  to  suppose  that 
the  Indian  Dyaus  had  been  originally  the  heaven  in  all  its 
aspects,  the  heaven  by  night  as  well  as  the  heaven  by  day ; 
but  that  his  nature  had  been  subsequently  divided,  and 
his  character  in  consequence  changed.  If  this  was  the 
case  the  rule  over  the  night  sky  was  given  over  to  Yaruwa, 
*  the  coverer.'  Later  on  in  Indian  mythology  Dyaus  comes 
to  signify  the  sun,  but  when  it  does  so  the  word  is  feminine 


THE  PRE-VEDIC  CREED.  .         117 

— the  sun  is  feminine  in  Sanskrit— and  the  masculine 
Dyaus  is  still  a  different  being  from  the  sun  itself.  Essen- 
tially, then,  we  must  say  that  Dyaus  was  ever  to  the 
Indians  the  bright  upper  sky,  the  sun's  home ;  but  he  was 
not  the  sun  itself. 

Dyaus  was  evidently  one  among  the  greatest,  probably 
he  was  once  the  greatest  god  of  the  Indians  in  the  pre- 
Yedic  age.  But  in  the  hymns  Dyaus  is  much  neglected. 
Scarcely  one  is  addressed  exclusively  to  him,  and  the 
mention  of  him,  when  it  occurs,  is  rather  incidental  than 
of  the  character  of  actual  worship. 

Dyaus  has  a  proper  companion  and  helpmeet  in  the 
earth  goddess,  and  she,  too,  belongs  rather  to  the  pre- 
Vedic  times  than  to  the  Vedic.  It  is  so  natural  to 
imagine  the  heaven  and  the  earth  as  the  two  first  beings, 
the  progenitors  of  all  life  in  the  world,  that  in  evecy 
system  almost  they  stand  at  the  head  of  the  pantheon. 
In  a  former  chapter  we  saw  how  the  New  Zealand  story 
represented  the  heaven  and  the  earth — Kangi  and  Papa 
they  are  there  called — as  the  begetters  of  all  other  living 
things,  who  yet  required  to  be  torn  apart  that  their 
children  might  continue  to  live.  This  primary  embrace 
of  earth  and  heaven  is  what  most  primitive  people  would 
hit  upon  to  account  for  the  origin  of  all  things.  Where- 
fore we  may  believe  that  far  back  in  the  Vedic  creed  stood 
first  of  all  the  heaven  father,  and  by  his  side  the  earth 
mother. 

The  Yedic  earth  goddess  is  Prithivi.  Whenever  Dyaus 
and  Prithivi  are  made  the  subject  of  a  hymn  they  are  in- 
voked together,  almost  as  a  conjoint  being  (Dyavaprithivi) . 
In  such  hymns  the  ordinary  characteristics  of  Dyaus  and 
Prithivi  are  held  before  our  eyes  :  the  two  are  represented 
to  us  strictly  in  their  phenomenal  existence.  They  have 
not  the  same  power  of  choice  and  will,  nothing  of  the 
strong  personality,  which  belongs  to  Indra  and  Agni. 
Dyaus  produces  the  rain,  and  sends  down  the  fertilising 
streams ;  Prithivi  bears  on  her  bosom  the  immense  weight 


]  18  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  the  mountains,  and  from  her  womb  sends  forth  the  lofty 
trees.1 

What  is  specially  remarkable  in  the  hymns  to  Prithivi 
is  that  the  singer,  even  while  he  is  worshipping  the  earth 
goddess,  seems  to  have  his  thoughts  still  turned  heaven- 
wards, still  to  be  thinking  of  the  clouds  ^ind  of  the  rain. 
It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  Vedic  creed  that  it  is  eminently 
celestial,  and  scarcely  ever  concerned  with  mundane 
things  ;  and  the  tendency  seems  to  express  itself  even  in 
the  worship  of  the  earth  goddess.  This  fact  has  led 
Professor  Gubernatis  2  to  declare  that  the  original  signifi- 
cance of  Prithivi — etymologically  'the  large,  the  ex- 
tended'— was  not  the  earth,  but  the  heaven,  and  that 
there  were  two  Prithivis,  the  celestial  and  the  terrestrial, 
of  which  the  celestial  was  the  elder.  This,  I  think,  we 
cannot  say.  In  a  former  chapter  we  have  seen  how  easily 
divinities  who  were  first  known  in  the  terrene  days  of 
belief  may  get  transferred  from  earth  to  heaven ;  much  as 
the  Assyrian  bulls  and  lions,  worshipped  no  doubt  in  days 
of  animal  worship,  had  a  pair  of  wings  given  them  and 
were  straightway  idealised  and  sent  to  heaven.  I  believe 
that  the  great  celestial  serpents — the  clouds — Ahi  and 
Vrita,  the  chief  enemies  of  Indra,  were  once  terrestrial 
rivers ; 3  and  I  believe  in  the  same  way  that  Prithivi,  from 
being  a  mere  earth  goddess,  got  a  place  in  the  sky  in  order 
that  she  might  sit  beside  her  spouse,  the  heaven  god.  We 
shall  see  other  instances  of  a  transfer  of  this  kind.4 

As  Prithivi  thus  remained  a  distinct  being,  and  at  the 
same  time  lost  her  connection  with  the  ground,  appearing 
henceforth  rather  as  the  consort  of  the  heaven  than  as  the 
goddess  of  the  earth,  she  became  by  name  distinguishable 
from  the  soil,  which  last  was,  in  Yedic  Sanskrit,  known 
under  the  name  of  Gau.  Gau  is  an  older  word  than 
Prithivi,  and  was  itself  once  the  name  of  the  earth  goddess 
(whence  the  Greek  goddess  Gaia).  Prithivi  was  then  only 

1  Cf.  R.  V.  v.  84.  *  Letture  sopra  la  M.  Ved.  pp.  59-64. 

»  See  Chapter  II.  *  See  Chapter  IV. 


DYAUS  AND  PtflTHIVI.  119 

one  of  the  epithets  of  Gau.  But  as  religion  changed  Gau 
sank  into  insignificance  and  Prithivi  came  to  the  front. 
Just  so  in  the  Greek  mythology  Gaia  (Ge)  was  the  pure 
and  simple  earth  ;  Demeter  (Ge-meter)  was  the  earth  with 
something  more  of  personality  added  on.  Ge,  in  Greek 
mythology,  continued  to  be  a  goddess,  but  she  was  charac- 
terless ;  the  force  of  personality  remained  with  Demeter. 

In  the  Vedic  hymns  we  see  Prithivi  in  her  turn  losing 
worship  and  losing  individuality  because  the  creed  has  be- 
come too  celestial  for  her. 

We  cannot  explain  so  easily  the  neglect  into  which 
Dyaus  has  fallen,  which  seems  the  more  extraordinary 
when  we  remember  how  once  widely  worshipped  and  how 
ancient  a  divinity  he  was.  Nevertheless  the  fact  remains. 
Part  of  his  nature  Dyaus  passed  over  to  Varuraa,  who  was 
also  a  personification  of  the  heaven,  but  most  often,  I 
think,  of  the  heaven  at  night.  Varuna's  name  signifies 
the  encompasser  or  coverer  (root  var,  to  cover  or  conceal)  ; 
he  is  the  same  with  the  Greek  ovpavos.  Varuna,  however, 
did  not  succeed  to  the  supremacy  which  Dyaus  once 
claimed.  That,  was  transferred  to  Indra. 

The  raising  of  Indra  to  the  place  of  highest  god  is  the 
great  advance  which  Vedic  religion  has  made  upon  the 
older  proto-  Aryan  belief.  Dyaus  is  the  father  of  Indra, 
just  as  Kronos  is  the  father  of  Zeus  and  Ouranos  of 
Kronos  ;  and  this  alone  would  lead  us  to  suppose  that  the 
heaven  god  was  the  older.1  Now,  however,  Dyaus'  chief 
claim  to  reverence  is  through  his  son. 


1  The  sonship  of  Zeus  to  Kronos  is  a  myth  of  comparatively  recent 
birth  in  Greek  mythology,  and  arises,  as  Welcker  has  shown  (  Griechische 
Gotterlehre,  i.  140),  merely  from  a  confusion  of  words.  Kronion,  which  is 
the  same  as  Chronion,  was  at  first  an  epithet  applied  to  Zeus,  showing  him 
as  existing  through  all  time  —  not  so  much  '  born  of  time,'  but  rather  the 
4  one  of  time,'  the  old  one,  a  common  way  of  speaking  of  gods  (cf  .  the 
Unkulonkulu  of  the  Zulus,  the  '  old,  old  '  Wa'inamo'inen  of  the  Kalewala). 
When  this  meaning  had  been  forgotten  Zeus  became  merely  the  son  of 
Kronos,  and  Kronos  became  a  new  being.  The  notion  of  personifying  the 
abstract  idea  time  would  never  have  entered  the  minds  of  a  primitive 
people.  When  Kronos  came  into  being  he  was  endowed  with  a  certain 


120  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Thy  father  Dyans  did  the  best  of  things 
When  he  became  thy  father,  Indra,1 

sings  one  of  the  Yedic  poets.  Evidently  Indra  is  acknow- 
ledged as  a  later  god,  but  also  a  greater  than  his  fore- 
runner. 

If  we  succeed  in  understanding  the  condition  of  mind 
accessary  for  that  purely  natural  religion  when  the 
livinity  was  by  name  identified  with  his  visible  counter- 
part— the  sea  or  the  sky,  or  whatever  it  might  be — we 
can  realise  how,  to  become  so  deified,  a  phenomenon  must 
be  constantly  present  to  the  senses;  or,  if  not  always 
present  thus,  it  must  at  least  recur  so  regularly  and  so 
often  that  the  notion  of  its  existence  is  firmly  impressed 
upon  men's  thoughts.  The  sun  is  not  always  seen,  but  he 
rises  and  sets  with  the  most  perfect  regularity,  and  in 
fine  climates  his  face  is  rarely  hidden  by  day.  He,  there- 
fore, is  fitted  to  be  from  the  first  among  the  greatest  of 
the  nature  gods.  Yet  even  the  sun  is  not,  in  most  my- 
thologies, the  supreme  god  ;  very  often  he  falls  far  short  of 
being  so  ;  and  that  he  does  this  is  owing,  in  chief  measure, 
to  his  disappearance  at  night.  When  men's  memories 

character,  and  this  was  really  taken  from  the  old  heaven  god — known  as 
Varurca,  Ouranos — who,  as  we  have  seen,  belonged  to  an  age  before  that 
in  which  Zeus  came  to  be  worshipped  as  a  god  of  storms.  In  fact,  Dyaus' 
nature  divided  in  twain  ;  the  heaven  side  went  to  Varuwa,  the  storm  side 
went  to  Zeus  ;  and  therefore  in  the  Greek  creed  Ouranos  belonged  to  a 
very  early  stage  of  worship,  and  corresponded  almost  exactly  to  the  Latin 
Saturnus.  When  Kronos  appeared  he  assumed  the  character  of  Ouranos, 
who  was  henceforward  almost  completely  forgotten.  The  record  of  the 
change,  however,  is  distinctly  preserved  in  the  myths ;  for  the  birth  of 
Zeus  from  Kronos,  the  treatment  of  his  children  by  the  latter,  &c.,  almost 
exactly  reproduce  the  relative  positions  of  Kronos  and  Ouranos.  There- 
fore, knowing  as  we  do  that  Kronos  is  of  later  origin  than  either  Zeus  or 
Ouranos,  we  are  justified  in  removing  this  middle  term,  and  we  at  once  get 
back  to  the  birth  of  Zeus  from  Ouranos,  the  jealousy  of  Zeus  entertained 
by  his  father,  and  the  way  in  which  the  newer  god  dispossessed  the  old. 
If,  therefore,  I  speak  of  the  Greeks  looking  back  to  the  Saturnian  time  of 
their  religion  (Ch.  IV.),  I  do  not  mean  that  there  ever  was  a  time  when 
Kronos  was  worshipped  instead  of  Zeus,  but  that  the  Greeks  looked  back, 
without  knowing  it,  to  the  older  worship  of  their  Ouranos,  which  really 
did  precede  the  cult  of  their  Zeus. 
>  B.  V.  iv.  17,  3. 


ACTIVE  AND  PASSIVE  GODS.  121 

are  very  short  it  will  fare  still  worse  with  phenomena 
whose  appearance  is  more  uncertain  or  at  longer  in- 
tervals. 

The  state  of  belief  which  has  been  characterised  as 
henotheism,  and  which  consists  in  worshipping  the  phe- 
nomenon which  is  immediately  present  and  neglecting 
those  phenomena  which  are  past,  evidently  arises  imme- 
diately out  of  that  still  earlier  phase  of  thought  (still 
earlier  and  still  more  akin  to  fetichism)  when  the  phe- 
nomenon to  be  recognised  as  divine  must  be  always 
present  to  the  senses.  Henotheism  is,  in  fact,  a  kind  of 
reversion  to  this  state  of  feeling  :  it  forgets  all  phenomena 
which  are  absent,  and  makes  a  protest  against  the  place 
of  memory  in  a  creed.  For  these  reasons  a  storm  god  (or 
god  storm)  is  not  likely  to  have  been  placed  high  in  the 
pantheon  during  the  earliest  days  of  nature  worship. 
When,  however,  the  divinity  and  the  phenomenon  were 
not  so  absolutely  identified,  when  the  notion  of  the  former's 
possessing  a  separate  existence  has  begun  to  creep  in. 
the  god  could  be  thought  of  without  the  aid  of  visible, 
presentation.  He  was  still  perhaps  identified  with  the 
phenomenon  in  character,  but  he  had  now  a  different  name 
from  it,  and  so  could  be  contemplated  alone.  He  might 
be  sitting  apart.  He  might  peradventure  be  sleeping  or 
upon  a  journey.  And  the  personality  now  became  more 
impressive  if  the  deeds  of  the  god  were  somewhat 
irregular  and  arbitrary.  This  is  the  time  for  a  god  such 
as  the  storm  god  (Indra  or  Zeus)  to  rise  to  power. 

We  may  suppose  that  in  those  climates  where  the 
Indian  sung  his  song  of  praise — unlike  ours — the  heavens 
were  most  often  seen  in  their  garment  of  unblemished 
blue.  Nothing  is  certainly  more  divine  and  impressive 
than  such  a  sight — at  first.1  But  there  is  withal  some- 

1  I  anticipate  here  some  objection  on  the  part  of  the  acute  reader. 
'Such  a  phrase  as  at  first,'  he  will  say,  <  imagines  man  awakening  suddenly 
into  the  world,  opening  his  eyes  upon  its  wonders,  and  at  once  falling  to 
the  invention  of  a  mythology  grounded  upon  these  first  impressions.  But 


122  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

thing  monotonous  about  it.  This  god  has  not  his  chang- 
ing fits,  his  passion  and  his  kindness.  He  is  too  serene 
to  be  very  ardently  loved  or  feared,  for  that  eternal  calm 
can  have  small  sympathy  with  the  shorf,  and  troubled  life 
of  man.  With  Indra  it  is  very  different.  He  is  the  god 
of  storms ;  he  is  the  sky,  but  the  sky  of  clouds  and  rain 
and  lightning.  His  coining  is  rare,  but  it  is  terrible. 
Sometimes,  doubtless,  Indra  seems  to  be  worshipped  only 
when  he  is  present  and  seen.  But  throughout  the  whole 
Yedic  series  we  see  the  awe  which  he  inspires  when 
he  does  come ;  in  them  we  seem  to  behold  the  very 
flash  of  his  arrows  and  to  hear  the  reverberation  of  his 
thunder. 

I  think  that  the  evidences  of  a  transfer  of  worship 
from  the  older  sky  god  to  Indra  are  very  clear  in  the 
Vedic  poems.  There  is  a  kind  of  rivalry  between  the  two ; 
or  when  Indra's  contest  is  not  with  Dyaus  it  is  with  Yaruna 
(ovpavos) .  It  is  acknowledged  by  Yedic  scholars  l  that 
Yaruna  was  worshipped  before  Indra,  and  Yaruna  is,  in 
one  aspect,  only  another  name  for  the  older  Dyaus.  The 
following  hymn  is  a  record  of  the  rivalry  between  Indra 
and  Yarmia.  The  poet  makes  them  both  uphold  their 

such  an  imagination  is  quite  inconsistent  with  the  slow  development  of 
human  faculties.  There  is  nothing  shorter  lived  in  the  human  thought 
than  the  sense  of  wonder.'  This  last  statement  is,  in  reality,  only  par- 
tially true.  The  sudden  sense  of  wonder  soon  fades,  but  there  is  a  slow 
abiding  sense  which  never  leaves  human  nature,  and  which,  if  it  did  desert 
mankind,  would  carry  away  with  it  all  his  power  of  poetry  and  all  his 
power  of  belief.  Wherefore  the  at  first  of  the  worship  of  the  sky  must  be 
taken  to  mean  that  period  during  which  man,  having  passed  away  from 
fetichism,  had  not  yet  advanced  beyond  it  far  enough  to  be  able  to  worship 
any  god  who  was  not  a  constantly  present  phenomenon.  The  gradual 
fading  of  the  influence  of  the  sky  on  belief  is  coeval  with  the  slow  de- 
velopment of  the  notion  of  a  being,  to  some  extent,  apart  from  phenomena. 
It  seems  to  us  possible  in  a  short  time  to  grow  familiar  with  and  weary  of 
any  particular  phenomenon,  because  we  can  now  run  rapidly  back  through 
the  stage  of  thought  which  human  nature  has  taken  ages  to  make  com- 
plete. In  this  respect  it  was  with  Belief  as  it  was  with  Reason :  the 
simplest  and  most  obvious  deductions  which  a  child  makes  now  in  a  few 
hours  took  mankind  centuries  to  make  for  the  first  time. 
1  By  Roth  and  by  Gubernatis  (Lettitre,  &c.,  189). 


KIVALRY  BETWEEN  VARUA^  AND  INDRA.  123 


claims  to  worship,  and  then  he  himself  sums  up  between 
them,  preferring  the  active  and  warlike  god : — 

VARUXA  SPEAKS. ! 

I  am  the  king,  to  me  belongetli  rule, 
I  the  life-giver  of  the  heavenly  host ; 
The  gods  obey  the  bidding  of  Varuna, 
I  am  the  refuge  of  the  human  kind. 

I  am,  0  Indra,  Varuwa,  and  mine  are 

The  deep  wide  pair  of  worlds,  the  earth  and  heaven ; 

Like  a  wise  artist,  made  I  all  things  living ; 

The  heaven  and  the  earth,  I  them  sustain. 


INDRA  SPEAKS. 

On  me  do  call  all  men,  the  rich  in  horses, 
Who  through  the  hurry  of  the  battle  go  ; 
I  sow  the  dreadful  slaughter  there  ;  I,  Indra, 
In  my  great  might  stir  up  the  dust  of  combat. 

This  have  I  done  ;  the  might  of  all  the  immortals 
Restraineth  never  me,  nor  shall  restrain. 


THE  POET  SPEAKS. 

That  this  thou  dost,  know  all  men  among  mortals  ; 
This  to  Varuwa  makest  thou  known,  0  ruler. 
Indra,  in  thee  we  praise  the  demon  slayer, 
Through  whom  the  pent-up  streams  are  free  to  flow. 

Such  a  change  as  that  from  Dyaus  or  Yarutia  to  Indra 
is  incidental  to  the  transition  from  nature  worship  to  the 
personal  god.  That  it  is  so  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
changes,  identical  in  significance,  have  been  made  by 
other  peoples  of  the  Indo-European  family.  All  have 

1  R.  V.  iv.  42.  Vanma  is  the  coverer,  from  root  var  (to  cover,  enclose, 
keep).  Cf.  Skr.  varana,  Zend  varena,  covering.  This  is  very  suitable  for 
the  night  sky,  and  like  that  image  of  Lady  Macbeth's — 

'  Nor  Heaven  peep  through  the  blanket  of  the  dark, 
To  cry,  «•  Hold,  hold  1  " ' 


124  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

abandoned  Dyaus.  The  Teutons  took  in  his  place  Wuotan 
or  Odhinn,  who  is  first  of  all  a  god  of  storm.  The  Greeks 
and  Romans  kept  the  name  of  the  older  sky  god  Zeus — 
Dyaus — but  they  modified  his  nature  in  the  same  direction 
in  which  Indians  and  Germans  changed  the  natures  of 
their  divinities.  Dyaus  meant  originally  the  bright 
heaven ;  Zeus  was  as  essentially  a  god  of  thunder  and  of 
rain — vs^sX^spsra^  the  cloud-collector.  He,  and  Jove 
too,  corresponded  as  to  their  natures  almost  exactly  with 
Indra. 

Yet  the  unmoved,  all-embracing  heaven  better  realises 
some  ideals  of  a  divinity  than  these  fitful  storm-gods  do  ; 
and  if  a  people  pass  from  the  one  to  the  other  it  will  not 
be  without  some  loss.  In  its  high  moods  the  fancy  will  look 
back  to  former  days,  when  the  gods  were  of  a  larger  pattern 
than  those  of  to-day.  Men  will  tell  of  some  past  Saturnian 
reign  when  lives  were  longer  and  not  so  eager  and  bitter 
as  they  have  become,  when  their  forefathers  enjoyed  the 
fruits  of  earth  without  strife  and  labour.  For,  after  all, 
the  sky  of  clouds  is  the  lower  sky.  The  Greeks,  we  know, 
made  a  distinction  between  arjp  and  aWrjp,  the  lower  and 
the  upper  air.  Dyaus,  when  he  grew  to  be  Zeus,  did  in 
reality  sink  from  the  latter  to  the  former  :  he  descended 
to  the  cloud  regions.  According  to  one  theory  of  ety- 
mology, Indra  expresses  the  same  change  in  his  very 
name.1 

The  world  over  which  the  cloudy  Indra  ruled  was  the 
world  of  farm  and  valley  and  low  fertile  pastures ;  but  the 
mountaineer,  whose  way  led  him  to  higher  ranges  and  on 
to  the  great  peak  of  the  Himalayas,  saw,  as  he  climbed 
upwards,  that  he  had  passed  the  heaven  of  rain  and 
thunder.  The  clouds,  which  used  to  seem  so  far  overhead, 
were  now  stretched  beneath  his  feet  like  a  carpet.  The 
storm  flashed,  but  he  was  beyond  its  reach ;  yet  still,  far  as 

1  This  etymology  is  proposed  by  Gubernatis  (Letture,  &c.,  p.  188).  I 
am,  I  confess,  inclined  to  look  upon  the  derivation  given  with  great  sus- 
picion, but  I  will  not  venture  to  pronounce  positively  against  it. 


THE  UPPER  AND  THE  LOWER  HEAVEN.      125 

ever  above  him,  spread  the  highest  vault  of  heaven,  whence 
shone  the  sun,  or  on  him  looked  the  everlasting  stars. 

Wherefore  the  earlier  associations  never  quite  lost  their 
hold,  and  the  sky  god  asserted  again  and  again  his  para- 
mount influence  upon  men's  imagination.  As  we  are  at 
present  dealing  only  with  Indian  mythology,  it  is  enough 
to  notice  how  in  time,  in  the  Brahmin  creed,  Indra  suc- 
ceeded to  the  complete  nature  of  Dyaus  ;  while  his  active 
powers,  along  with  his  thunderbolts  and  lightning  flash, 
were  taken  from  him  and  given  to  a  younger  divinity — 
namely,  to  Vishnu.  Vishnu  is  the  Brahmin  saviour,  the 
incarnate  god. 

In  truth,  there  is  in  this  rivalry  between  Dyaus  and 
Indra  an  element  which  is  universal  and  ingrained  in  the 
religious  instinct.  At  first,  in  such  early  times  as  these 
Vedic  ones,  the  instinctive  feeling  is  not  consciously  ex- 
pressed, but  expressed  unconsciously  by  these  changes  of 
creed.  We  can  now  recognise  the  counter- workings  of  this 
instinct  as  independent  of  any  particular  phase  of  belief, 
as  belonging  not  to  this  period  specially,  but  to  all  time. 
The  contest  between  the  heaven  and  the  storm  gods  is  an 
expression  of  two  diverse  tendencies  of  the  human  mind 
when  dealing  with  religious  ideas.  There  is  first  an  im- 
pulse upward,  a  desire  to  press  the  thoughts  continually 
forward  in  an  effort  to  idealise  the  Godhead;  but  by 
exalting  or  seeming  to  exalt  Him  to  the  highest  regions 
of  abstraction,  this  tendency  is  likely  to  rob  the  Deity  of 
all  fellowship  with  man,  and  man  of  all  claims  upon  His 
sympathy  and  love.  Then  comes  in  the  second  impulse, 
which  often  at  one  stroke  brings  down  the  god  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  level  of  mankind,  leaving  him  at  the  last 
no  better  than  a  demi-god  or  superior  kind  of  man.  One 
we  may  call  the  metaphysical  or  the  religious,  the  other 
the  mythological  impulse ;  and  we  shall  never  rightly 
understand  the  history  of  religion  until  we  have  learned  to 
recognise  these  two  streams  of  tendency  interpenetrating 
every  system. 


126  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF, 

Indra,  then,  once  rose  to  a  supreme  place  because  he 
was  more  active  and  changeful  than  Dyaus,  and  better 
satisfied  those  instincts  which  desire  to  see  the  deity  like 
mankind.  Soon  he  assumed  the  qualities  and  title  which 
had  belonged  to  his  father,  and  clothed  himself  with  the 
character  befitting  a  Supreme  God.  In  the  Vedic  creed, 
such  as  we  see  it,  Dyaus  has  almost  'altogether  faded  away. 
Indra  there  represents  the  ideal  godhead :  he  is  the  Father 
and  the  Supreme  One,  the  god  to  whom  all  highest  wor- 
ship turns. 

It  results  from  this  that  in  the  Vedic  hymns  Indra  has 
to  a  great  extent  put  off  his  mythological  nature,  in  order 
to  clothe  himself  more  completely  with  the  majesty  of 
divinity.  The  instinct  of  worship  is  devoted  to  him  ;  the 
story-telling  parts  of  the  creed  are  reserved  for  lesser 
gods.  Of  Indra's  deeds  we  shall  have  something  to  say 
hereafter;  but  there  is  not  very  much  variety  in  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  can  have  110  difficulty  in  allowing 
that  he,  among  all  the  gods  of  the  Vedic  Indian,  exercised 
the  deepest  influence  on  belief.  Next  to  Indra  stood  Agni. 
To  say  that  among  the  most  genuine  and  ancient  hymns 
of  the  Rig  Veda  about  265  are  addressed  to  Indra,  233 
to  Agni,  while  no  other  god  can  lay  claim  to  more  than  a 
quarter  of  this  latter  number,1  is  enough  to  show  in  what 
direction,  towards  what  parts  of  nature,  the  religious 
thought  of  these  Aryas  turned.  We  have  a  further  wit- 
ness to  the  supremacy  of  Indra  and  Agni  in  the  fact  that 
nine  out  of  the  ten  books  of  the  Eig  Veda  begin  with  a 
series  of  hymns  addressed  to  them,  as  though  their  wor- 
ship must  precede  all  other.  The  worship  of  Indra  is  the 
central  feature  of  Vedic  mythology.  As  Dyaus  has  quite 
resigned  his  throne  before  the  beginning  of  the  Vedas, 
Indra  must  be  looked  upon  in  every  way  as  the  supreme 

1  Soma,  indeed,  can  apparently  do  so  ;  for  the  whole  of  one  book  (the 
ninth)  is  devoted  to  him.  But,  in  fact,  the  hymns  of  this  book  are  all  of  a 
ritualistic  character :  they  are  concerned  with  the  ceremonies  of  worship  in 
which  Soma  plays  so  important  a  part,  But  they  are  not  written  distinctly 
in  praise  of  the  Indian  Bacchus. 


THE  MIGHT  OF  INDEA.  127 

god.  He  is  still  a  representative  of  the  storm  ;  but  as 
he  is  also  the  highest  god,  it  is  needful  that  he  should  be 
something  more  than  this.  He  has  already  taken  upon 
himself  a  great  part  of  the  nature  of  the  older  god  of 
heaven.  'The  might  of  all  the  immortals,'  as  we  have 
seen,  'restrains  him  never.' 

It  was  the  power  of  the  god  which  was  most  wor- 
shipped. He  might  be  counted  on  for  help  as  the  special 
god  of  the  Aryas,1  just  as  Jehovah  was  the  special  god  of 
the  children  of  Israel.  In  a  fine  passage,  which  breathes 
the  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  psalm,  we  are  told  how  '  he 
shakes  the  heaven  and  the  earth  as  the  hem  of  his 
garment.' 2  Indra  is  often  called  upon,  as  Jehovah  is,  to 
show  his  strength  and  to  confound  those  who  have  dared 
to  doubt  his  supremacy ;  for  here  in  India,  as  in  Palestine, 
*  the  wicked  saith  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  god.' 

INDRA  SPEAKS. 

I  come  with  might  before  thee,  stepping  first, 
And  behind  me  move  all  the  heavenly  powers. 

THE  POET  SPEAKS. 
If  thou,  0  Indra,  wilt  my  lot  bestow, 

A  hero's  part  dost  thou  perform  with  me. 

To  thee  the  holy  drink  I  offer  first ; 

Thy  portion  here  is  laid,  thy  soma  brewed. 
Be,  while  I  righteous  am,  to  me  a  friend  ; 

So  shall  we  slay  of  foemen  many  a  one. 

Ye  who  desire  blessings,  bring  your  hymn 

To  Indra ;  for  the  true  is  always  true. 
*  There  is  no  Indra,'  many  say  ;  'who  ever 

Has  seen  him  ?     Why  should  we  his  praise  proclaim  ?  ' 

INDRA   SPEAKS. 
I  am  here,  singer  ;  look  on  me  ;  here  stand  I. 

In  might  all  other  beings  I  o'erpass. 
Thy  holy  service  still  my  strength  renews, 

And  thereby  smiting,  all  things  smite  I  down. 

1  R.  V.  vi.  18,  3.  2  Ibid.  i.  37,  6. 


128  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

And  as  on  heaven's  height  I  sat  alone, 

To  me  thy  offering  and  thy  prayer  rose  np. 
Then  spake  my  soul  this  word  within  himself: 
'  My  votaries  and  their  children  call  upon  me.' ! 

The  enemies  against  whom  Indra  fights  are  not,  how- 
ever, generally  speaking,  earthly  foes.  I  have  heard  critics 
speaking  from  the  outside  object  to  Vedic  scholars  the 
improbability  that  any  people  would  have  their  thoughts 
constantly  set  to  observe  the  heavenly  phenomena  and  to 
sing  of  them.  And  I  must  confess  that,  at  the  time  I  read 
these  criticisms,  my  prejudices — or  prejudgments — went 
altogether  with  the  critics.  But  such  predispositions  must 
give  way  to  fact.  We  cannot  determine -beforehand  what 
it  is  likely  that  a  people  will  or  will  not  think  or  believe.2 
And  it  is  quite  certain  that  almost  all  the  Yedic  hymns 
are  concerned  with  the  skyey  influences,  with  the  heaven, 
with  day  and  night,  with  the  sun,  with  morning  and 
evening  twilight,  with  the  clouds  and  with  the  wind.  The 
purely  devotional  parts  of  the  Ii3rmns  have  a  certain  same- 
ness ;  for  the  Vedic  religion  has  already  neared  the  con- 
ception of  a  single  ideal  god.  So  long  as  we  are  concerned 
with  what  Indra  is  we  find  that  epithets  are  too  few  to 
express  his  greatness  and  the  many  sides  of  his  character ; 
but  we  find  also  that  the  same  expression,  or  nearly  the 
same,  may  be  used  of  other  gods,  as  of  Agni  or  of  Varuwa 
or  Mitra. 

When  we  pass  beyond  the  inward  being  and  come  to 
the  record  of  the  deeds  which  Indra  has  done  (not  those 
he  is  asked  to  do),  we  are  face  to  face  once  more  with  the 
fresh  world  of  nature.  Treated  in  this  way,  no  longer 
devotionally  but  historically,  the  nature  of  Indra  is 
limited  to  the  phenomena  of  storm.  He  kills  the  enemy, , 

1  R.  V.  viii.  89.      I  have  followed  here,  as  in  all  other  cases,  the  trans- 
lation of  Grassmann ;  Ludwig  gives  a  somewhat  different  complexion  to 
this  dialogue. 

2  See  what  Schoolcraft  says  concerning  the  minute  attention  paid  by 
the  Algic  tribes  to  the  phenomena  of  the  sky,  Algic  Res.  p.  48. 


THE  ENEMIES  OF  INDRA.  129 

it  is  true ;  lie  breaks  down  his  strong  citadel ;  he  destroys 
his  high  hills.  But  who  is  this  enemy  ?  He  is  Witra ; 
he  is  Ahi,  the  serpent.  '  Him  the  god  struck  with  Indra- 
might,  and  set  free  the  all-gleaming  water  for  the  use  of 
men.' l  What  the  serpent  has  done  is  to  conceal  the 
waters  of  fruitfulness  which  Indra  sets  free.  The  hills 
which  Indra  destroys  are  the  mountains  of  £ambara — 
'the  shadowy  cloud-hill  of  tfainbara ' 2— very  evidently  the 
clouds  themselves.  The  one  great  action  of  the  god, 
which  is  referred  to  again  and  again  and  constantly 
prayed  for,  is  the  bringing  the  thunderstorm,  and  with  it 
the  desired  rain. 

In  reading  the  description  of  these  conflicts,  we  detect 
a  slight  confusion  of  mind  on  the  part  of  the  authors  of  the 
hymns.  This  confusion  arises  from  Indra's  being  in  a 
degree  abstracted  from  those  physical  phenomena  which, 
are  the  substance  of  his  nature ;  so  that  the  same  pheno- 
mena can  be  presented  again  to  the  imagination,  and  in  a 
new  light.  Thus,  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
great  god  is  himself  the  storm,  or  still  more  strictly  the 
stormy  sky,  and  though  this  idea  of  course  includes  all 
the  separate  parts  of  the  storm — the  black  clouds,  for 
example,  which  hold  in  their  bosoms  the  lightning  or^ 
the  rain — still  it  is  quite  possible  to  regard  these  parts  as 
separate  entities.  The  clouds  may  be  the  servants  and 
the  companions  of  Indra.  When  they  appear,  in  that 
aspect  they  are  the  Maruts,  his  band  of  warriors.  Or  the 
clouds  may  be  enemies  of  the  god.  The  darkness  which 

1  i.  165,  8.     The  name  Vritra  is,  I  believe,  from  the  same  root,  var  (or 
vri),  as  Varuna.     Possibly,  therefore,  it  was  originally  only  the  darkness. 
This  reappearance  of  one  central  idea  (shown  in  root)  in  two  forms  should 
be  compared  with  the  identity  of  Thorr  and  Thrymr  (Ch.  VII.) 

2  ii.  24.  <Sambara  (  =  samvara),  from  «am  and  vri,  is  a  parallel  example.  It 
had  not  originally  an  evil  significance,  only  meaning  he  who  covers  up  or 
contains  the  source  of  abundance  (s"am  and  samba>  happiness ;  but  .same,  to 
collect).     This  is  an  epithet  for  the  cloud.     But  when  £ambara  grew  into 
an  dpponent  of  Indra,  the  name  was  construed  to  mean  the  concealer,  or 
secreter,  or  thief  of  wealth  and  happiness. 

K 


130  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

follows  their  spreading  over  the  heavens  seems  to  proclaim 
them  powers  of  evil. 

In  this  way  the  clouds  become  those  deadly  serpents, 
Ahi  and  Yritra ;  and  now,  behold  !  Indra  has  sent  his  flash 
and  they  are  dissolved  in  rain.  This  water,  long  desired, 
expected  long,  they  have  concealed  in  their  folds  or  coils ; 
and  it  is  Indra  who  sets  it  free.  Strong  with  his  soma 
drink,  he  hurls  his  bolt  and  strikes  to  atoms  the  stream - 
concealing  dragon.1  In  this  aspect,  therefore,  the  clouds 
are  very  appropriately  likened  to  Yritra,  or  to  Ahi,  or  to 
the  mountains  of  $ambara. 

Thus  the  storm  and  the  constituents  of  the  storm 
are  at  once  Indra  and  his  companions,  the  Maruts, 
and  also  che  enemies  of  Indra.  There  is  nothing  more 
common  in  mythology  than  such  a  double  aspect  of  a 
natural  phenomenon,  though  at  the  same  time  there  is 
nothing  more  puzzling  to  the  student,  nor  nothing  which 
seems  to  give  a  better  weapon  to  the  sarcasm  of  the 
sceptic  in  comparative  mythology,  who  accuses  us  of 
making  '  anything  out  of  anything '  when  we  interpret 
myths  in  this  way.  Zeus  is  a  storm  god  scarcely  less  than 
Indra  is;  but  beings  of  the  storm  also  are  the  Cyclops  and 
(possibly)  the  Gorgon.  Or  if  Medusa  be,  as  I  hold,  the 
moon,  so  too  is  the  goddess  Artemis.  The  eye  of  the  Cyclops 
is  the  sun ;  and  yet  the  sun  is  not  the  less  greatest  and  most 
beneficent  of  gods.  It  is  the  same  in  the  mythology  of 
the  Teutons.  Thorr,  the  god,  is  the  wielder  of  the  thunder- 
bolt ;  but  one  of  Thorr's  great  enemies,  the  giant  Thrymr, 
is  the  thunder  likewise.  The  sun  is  Balder,  the  Beautiful, 
brightest  and  best  of  the  .ZEsir ;  or  it  is  the  eye  of  Odhinn, 
which  the  god  threw  into  Mini's  well ;  or  else  it  is  the 
head  of  the  giant  Mimr  himself,  which  Odhiun  cut  off. 

Indra  being  promoted  to  be  the  supreme  one  among 

the  gods,  Agni  takes  the  place  next  to  him,  and  becomes 

the  messenger  between  heaven  and  earth.     How  well  and 

how  consistently  with  his  elemental  nature  he  fills  this  posi- 

1  P-.  V.  ii.  19. 


INDRA  AND  AGNL  131 


tion  we  have  already  seen.  Yet  it  is  true  that  the  being 
who  in  most  mythologies— most  Aryan  mythologies,  at  any 
rate — is  the  human-like  god  and  the  friend  of  man  is  not 
the  fire,  but  rather  the  sun.  He  is  Apollo  or  Heracles, 
Thorr  or  Balder.  The  promotion  of  Agni  to  this  place 
must  therefore  be  reckoned  a  peculiarity  of  the  Vedic 
religion,  but  it  is  one  which  it  is  more  needful  to  point 
out  than  to  attempt  any  elaborate  explanation  of  the 
causes  of  it.  Indeed,  in  all  such  cases  the  record  of  the  fact 
itself  is  what  we  most  want,  not  theories  of  how  this  fact 
came  to  be — theories  which,  as  a  kind  of  prophecies  after 
the  event,  are  very  easy  to  fabricate.  As  the  thing  was  so, 
we  easily  see  that  it  would  suggest  a  tone  of  thought  in 
conformity  with  the  articles  of  belief.  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  frame  of  mind  which  should  choose  an  Indra 
for  the  supreme  divinity  rather  than  a  Dyaus,  or  an  Agni 
next  to  him  rather  than  an  Apollo  or  a  Balder.  But  the 
important  thing  to  notice  is  that  the  inclination  was  pre- 
sent among  these  particular  people  and  at  this  particular 
time. 

The  human  god  is  he  about  whom  myths  oftenest  arise, 
and  whose  character  is  in  consequence  more  varied  than 
the  character  of  the  Highest.  This  rule  is  illustrated  in 
the  case  of  Agni,  of  whose  many  sided  nature  we  have 
already  noted  the  most  important  features.  Twice  born, 
once  in  the  cloud  and  once  again  in  the  wood ;  descending 
from  heaven  in  the  lightning,  and  rising  up  again  from  the 
altar  or  the  funeral  pyre^  Agni  was,  while  on  earth,  always 
at  the  service  of  man,  watching  over  him  in  the  house. 
He  was  the  eternal  opposite  of  man's  great  enemy,  the 
darkness ;  he  was  the  chief  protection  against  that  and 
its  multitudinous  terrors.  We  cannot  now  realise  the 
horror  which  men  anciently  felt  of  the  dark,  of  its  dangers 
from  wild  beasts,  of  the  still  greater  spiritual  dangers  to 
which  at  night-time  they  felt  themselves  exposed.  At  night 
ranged  abroad  those  evil  ones,  those  unseen  deadly  foes 
who  (in  the  words  of  one  Yedic  hymn)  '  strike  with  hidden 

K   2 


132  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

but  victorious  powers.'  Therefore  Agni  is  never  allowed 
utterly  to  leave  the  worshipper :  the  house  fire  never  goes 
out.1  This  was  the  rule  once  among  all  the  nations  of  the 
Indo-European  family ;  but  before  historic  times  it  had 
been  more  or  less  abandoned  by  most,  and  was  preserved 
in  its  strictness  only  by  Indians  and  Persians. 

In  other  Indo-European  creeds — those  at  least  of  Greek 
and  Roman  and  Teuton  2— we  never  find  the  worship  of 
the  fire  in  its  intensity,  only  the  traces  of  what  it  has  been. 
In  Hestia  and  Yesta  it  is  not  the  whole  character  of  Agni 
that  is  presented  to  us,  but  only  the  house  fire  generalised 
or  epitomised  as  a  great  state  fire.3  Hestia  is  called  by 
the  Homeric  hymnist  the  most  revered  of  goddesses.4  At 
Olympia,  Pausanias  tells  us,  the  first  sacrifices  were  made 
to  her.5  This  surviving  custom  witnesses  to  the  decay  of 
a  higher  kind  of  worship,  as  does  the  importance  attached 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  fire  of  Yesta  in  Rome,6  and  to 
the  purity  of  the  vestal  virgins,  and  so  forth. 

In  Germany  traces  of  the  same  kind  of  fire  ritual  are 
found,  but  diminished  to  a  small  compass.  At  the  present 
day  popular  superstition  forbids  the  letting  out  of  the  fire 
on  the  hearth  during  certain  sacred  nights — Christmas 
Eve,  for  example,  New  Year's  Eve,  or,  according  to  some, 
for  all  the  nights  of  the  '  Twelve  Days.'  (  If  the  fire  goes 
out  on  the  hearth  the  money  goes  out  of  the  coffer.' 7  And, 

1  Concerning  the  laws  and  customs  which  have  been  founded  upon  the 
need  of  this  perpetual  house  fire,  see,  among  many  other  writers,  F.  de 
Coulange's   Cite  Antique.    It  is  doubtful  whether  the  classic  Vesta  and 
Hestia  are  from  the  root  vas,  to  shine,  or  from  vas,  to  dwell  (see  Zeitsch. 
f.  v.  Spr.  xvi.  160).     May  it  not  be  from  both,  and  the  identity  of  these 
two  roots  witness  to  the  importance  of  the  house  fire  to  the  house  ?    No 
man  could  dwell  without  a  house  fire. 

2  The  fire  god,   Agni,  retained  his   name  only  among   the   Slavonic 
branch  of  the  Aryan  race. 

3  See  above  on  root  meaning  of  Vesta  and  Hestia. 

4  Hymn,  in  Aph.  18,  22. 

5  v.  14,  §  5.     See  also  Plato,  Leges,  ix.  2.     Let  us  add  that  in  Crete  her 
name  was  pronounced  in  the  solemn  oath  before  that  of  Zeus  Cretagenes. 

6  These  perpetual  fires  were  not  unknown  in  Greece.     There  was  one 
kept  up,  for  example,  at  Mantinea. 

»  Wnttke,  Dcutselier  Volksaberglaube,  pp.  63, 66,  &c. 


INDO-EUROPEAN  FIRE  WORSHIP.  133 

again,  for  a  public  recognition  of  the  same  duties  we  have 
the  custom  of  lighting  bonfires  on  the  hills  on  great  days 
of  the  heathen  calendar—  the  Easter  or  Ostara  fire,  the  fire 
on  Walpurgisnacht  (May-day*  Eve),  and  the  Johannisf euer 
(St.  John's  Day  fire),  which  was  more  anciently  the  bale- 
fire of  Balder.1 

The  ritual  of  the  fire  is,  in  all  these  cases,  but  a  faint 
shadow  of  what  among  the  Indo-European  races  generally 
it  had  once  been.  Accordingly,  the  beings  who  are  sup- 
posed to  represent  Agiii  represent  but  a  small  part  of  the 
great  personality  of  the  fire  god.  Hestia  or  Vesta  show 
him  as  the  house  fire,  the  flame  which  has  descended  to 
live  on  earth.  Hephaestus  and  Vulcan  show  him  in  a  still 
meaner  guise,  as  the  forger's  fire  :  this  is  the  same  cha- 
racter in  which  Agni  is  called  in  the  Vedas  Twashtar,  the 
fabricator.  In  such  a  guise  as  Hephaestus  or  Vulcan  the 
fire  god  has  sunk  almost  below  the  level  of  humanity  ;  for 
he  is  a  lame,  deformed  being,  the  laughing-stock  of  the 
Olympians.2  Nevertheless  this  lameness  and  deformity 
are  not  themselves  of  recent  origin,  but  have  their  place 
in  the  character  of  Agni,  and  are  associated  with  some  of 
the  most  beautiful  myths  concerning  him.  Of  these,  how- 
ever, I  cannot  speak  now.  What  is  peculiar  to  Hephaestus 
and  Vulcan  is  that  they  present  this  side  only  and  forget 
the  higher  ones. 

It  is  evident  that  the  novelty  and  wonder  of  fire  had 
been  lost  sight  of  by  the  Greeks  and  Eomans  and  Teutons. 
Fire  had  become  an  ordinary  thing  to  them,  and  so  they 
were  no  longer  in  eager  search  for  its  presence  throughout 
the  realm  of  nature.  It  is  for  some  such  reason  as  this 


1  See  Chapters  VIII.,  X. 

2  As  for  the  northern  Loki,  he  presents  the  fire  in  its  worst  aspect,  a 
being  no  longer  divine,  but  one  who  never  ceases  to  work  evil  against  the 
jEsir  (Edda  Snorra,  D.  49).     Nevertheless  that  Loki  had  not  originally 
this  evil  nature  is  witnessed  by  the  Eddaic  history  itself.     In  a  study  on 
the  '  Mythology  of   the  Eddas '  (Trs.  Hoy.  Soc.  of  Literature,  vol.  xii.),  I 
have  discussed  at  some  length  the  gradual   deterioration  of  Loki,  and 
shown  (I  think   the  importance  of  the  place  he  once  held. 


134  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

that,  in  the  later  creeds,  the  earthly  fire  is  quite  dissociated 
from  the"  heavenly  one.  With  Agni  it  was  very  different : 
from  his  heavenly  birth  he  drew  all  the  greatness  of  his 
character.  The  god  who  was  ^o  near  to  man  was  yet  seen 
far  away,  not  in  the  lightning  only,  but  in  the  red  of 
morning.  The  Indian  saw  in  the  dawn  a  sort  of  picture 
or  allegory,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  of  the  total  universe,  and 
of  the  limitless  extent  of  time  and  space.  The  Vedic 
psalmist  called  the  place  of  the  sun's  rising  Aditi,  i  the 
boundless ; '  for  as  he  looked  through  the  long  layers  of 
level  cloud  he  was  swayed  by  the  sense  of  endless  space — 
that  sort  of  mental  vertigo  which  seizes  us  sometimes  when 
we,  too,  gaze  either  upon  the  endless  ranges  of  cloud  on 
the  horizon  or  upward  among  the  vista  of  the  stars. 
Through  all  the  regions  of  morning  and  evening  bright- 
ness the  worshipper  saw  Agni  shining,  and  so  he  called 
him  the  son  of  Aditi,  the  boundless  one. 

Side  by  side,  then,  stood  these  two  contradictory 
notions— Agni,  the  endlessly  extending  vista  of  red  clouds 
at  sun-rising  or  sun-setting,  and  Agni  born  from  the 
rubbing  of  two  smaj]  sticks.  Between  the  two,  from  one 
to  the  other,  extends  the  vast  pantheistic  nature  of  the 
god.  And  yet  to  this  external  being  we  must  add  some- 
thing more.  Agni  is  also  the  unseen  god,  the  internal 
fire  ;  he  is  the  kiudler  of  all  passionate  longings,  of  inspi- 
ration, of  the  intoxication  of  thought  and  joy,  of  anger 
and  the  burning  desire, of  revenge. 

Indra  and  Agni  represent  upon  the  whole,  as  has  been 
said,  the  strongly  religious  side  of  Indo-Aryan  belief,  as 
opposed  to  the  lighter  mythological  aspect  of  it.  It 
belongs  to  the  scheme  of  these  chapters  to  pass  slightly 
over  this  religious  phase,  which  touches  too  closely  upon 
the  later  ethical  development  of  belief.  It  is  not  our 
object  to  discover  what  kind  of  emotion  the  gods  called 
forth  from  their  votaries  so  much  as  what  was  the  outward 
aspect  in  which  imagination  saw  the  gods.  Indra  and 
Agni,  therefore,  cannot  occupy  a  place  in  our  enquiries 


AGNI  AS  A  HERO.  135 

proportionate  to  the  place  which  they  held  in  the  creed  of 
the  Indian. 

Agni,  however,  has  many  claims  upon  our  attention 
on  the  heroic  side.  Being  so  human  in  some  aspects  of 
him,  he  was  not  always  kept  at  the  greatest  heights  of 
adoration,  but  descended  often  to  the  heroic  level,  and  in 
doing  so  became  the  subject  of  divers  myths  and  stories. 
His  most  striking  appearance  in  this  guise  is  that  to 
which  reference  has  been  already  made,  his  great  act  of 
parricide,  which  was  acknowledged  even  by  the  singer  to 
be  scarcely  becoming  a  god,  but  concerning  the  performance 
of  which  no  doubt  unfortunately  could  be  raised.  I  will 
not  assert  that  this  notion  contains  in  it  the  germ  of  the 
story  related  of  so  many  heroes — Cyrus,  CEdipus,  Perseus, 
Orestes,  Romulus,  and  others — namely,  that,  voluntarily 
or  by  accident,  they  have  been  guilty  of  this  crime  of 
parricide ;  but  I  think  it  possible  that  these  personages 
may  have  had  some  connection  with  Agni,  and  that  their 
story  may  be  in  part  founded  on  the  Agni  myth.  How- 
ever, they  are  certainly  not  immediate  children  of  the 
fire  god. 

Prometheus,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  direct  descendant 
of  the  fire  god.  He  was  once  not  improbably  the  actual 
embodiment  of  the  fire  drill;  but  to  a  mythology  not 
quite  so  literal  he  became  an  embodiment  of  fire,  or  the 
fire  god.  Fire  has  its  evil  and  destructive  as  well  as  its 
beneficent  aspect,  and  this  bad  side  of  the  element  is 
embodied  in  the  Titan  Prometheus.  Though  not  a  parri- 
cide, he  is  the  foe  of  father  Zeus  ;  and  for  his  wickedness 
he  is  punished.  This,  at  least,  I  take  to  be  the  earlier 
legend  ;  for  it  is  one  in  which  Prometheus  closely  resembles 
the  Scandinavian  fire  god,  Loki,  who  is  also  the  enemy  of 
the  gods,  and  who,  for  his  wickedness,  is  chained  upon  a 
rock  till  the  day  of  doom.  Some  returning  thought  of  the 
goodness  of  fire  and  its  benefits  has  again  changed  the 
Greek  story,  and  restored  the  Titan  by  making  him  a 
martyr  to  his  love  of  human  kind  and  a  victim  of  the 


136  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

jealousy  of  the  Olympians.  In  the  story,  therefore,  of 
Prometheus  stealing  fire  from  heaven,  and  giving  it  to 
man,  we  have  unquestionably  the  trace  of  an  old  Aryan 
myth,  which  gave  a  similar  part  to  Agni.  This  story 
placed  the  fire  god  in  opposition  to  some  supreme  being 
in  the  Indian  pantheon — may  be  to  Indra  or  Dyaus.  And 
Agni  was  punished  for  his  temerity.  Perhaps  he  was 
flung  from  heaven  as  Hephaestus  was,  and  as,  we  know, 
the  fire  itself  is  often  flung.  Perhaps  he  was  chained  to 
a  rock  as  Prometheus  and  Loki  were  chained. 

From  Agni  and  Indra  we  pass  to  gods  less  exalted  in 
the  Vedic  ritual,  less  near  to  realising  the  ideal  of  a  god- 
head, but  yet  with  individualities  of  their  own.  There  is, 
it  cannot  be  denied,  a  certain  indistinctness  about  the 
celestial  phenomena  with  which  we  are  dealing  in  Yedic 
mythology,  as  compared  with  those  terrestrial  fetich  gods 
which  we  discussed  in  the  last  chapter.  But  this  seems 
not  unnatural  when  we  consider  that  we  have  reached  a 
less  material  and  a  more  imaginative  region  than  we  were 
in  before.  Moreover,  in  the  Vedas  we  are  not  even  in  the 
region  of  pure  phenomena  worship,  but  in  an  intermediate 
state  between  that  and  the  cult  of  gods  who  have  the 
nature  of  man. 

As  the  worshipped  river  grows  shadowy  and  shapeless 
in  the  mist- like  apsara,  '  the  formless  one,'  so  the  nature 
gods,  in  their  turn,  before  they  emerge  again  as  human 
beings,  become  first  the  pale  semblances  of  what  they  once 
were  ;  while  they  are,  at  the  same  time,  the  faint  fore- 
shadowings  of  what  they  will  be,  they  are  the  phantoms  of 
human  kind.  They  are  no  longer  things  ;  they  are  not  even 
pure  phenomena ;  they  are  not  beings  with  completely  human 
natures ;  and  so  they  hover  in  a  middle  state,  and  hang, 
like  the  coflin  of  the  Prophet,  suspended  between  heaven 
and  earth.  Take  the  sun  god,  for  example.  He  was  once, 
it  is  certain,  merely  the  bright  disk  which  travels  up 
heaven's  arch.  But  in  the  Vedas  he  is  no  longer  this 


NATURE  GODS  GROWN  SHADOWY.  137 


only ;  the  disk  itself  may  be  the  wheel  of  his  chariot.  The 
sun  god  (Suryas)  comes  '  dragging  his  wheel.' l  The  sun 
god  is  here  something  unseen  and  imagined,  but  he  is  not 
yet  humanised.  Sometimes  he  is  called  a  bull,  sometimes 
a  bird ; 2  but  it  is  not  meant  that  he  is  really  a  bull  or  a 
bird.  Still  he  is  as  much  like  these  things  as  he  is  like  a 
man.  He  is  the  great  ruler  of  the  day,  the  all-powerful, 
the  creator — as  it  sometimes  seems — of  all  the  world.  (For 
does  not  the  world  at  his  call  become  visible,  and  come  out 
of  darkness  which  is  nothingness  ?)  Yet  for  all  his  great- 
ness the  sun  god  has  not  such  a  free  will  as  man  has  ;  he 
cannot  rule  and  act  in  any  way  he  chooses.  He  is  com- 
pelled to  follow  his  daily  round  ;  he  *  travels  upon  change- 
less paths.'  In  one  word,  all  his  being  is  still  united 
to  the  phenomenon  which  gives  him  his  name,  and  which 
is  to  mankind  his  outward  show. 

It  is  essentially  the  same  with  the  other  divine  parts 
of  nature  as  it  is  with  this  particular  one,  the  sun ;  the 
morning  goddess  is  not  the  simple  dawn,  though  she  must 
be  in  all  things  like  the  dawn.  The  evening  goddess 
must  be  like  evening  ;  the  storm  and  fire  gods  must  be 
like  storm  and  fire.  But  all  these  things  are  seen  through 
a  medium  of  imagination,  and  not  in  the  prosaic  aspect 
of  mere  fact. 

In  no  mythic  poetry  are  we  lifted  up  to  a  higher  region 
of  imagination  than  we  are  in  the  Yedas.  It  might  seem 
as  if  such  flights  were  too  airy  and  unreal  to  have  been 
made  by  genuine  belief ;  and  they  would  be  so,  perhaps, 
were  it  not  that  they  start  from  the  firm  ground  of  a  more 
primitive  creed,  to  which  the  new  beliefs  are  still  partly 
tied.  If  a  visible  thing  is  no  longer  worshipped  in  them, 
still  the  divine  being  is  so  near  the  thing — the  phenomenon 
— in  all  his  ways,  that  the  certainty  which  attaches  to 
what  the  eye  can  actually  see  and  the  ear  detect  becomes 
his  by  inheritance.  The  worshipper  was  himself  scarcely 

»  R.  V.  vii.  63.  2  Cf.  x.  177. 


138  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

yet  conscious  of  the  distinction  to  be  made  between  Indra 
and  the  storm,  Ushas  and  the  dawn,  Suryas  and  the  disk 
of  the  sun. 

But  it  is  harder  still  for  us  to  understand  such  a  state 
of  belief  than  it  was  for  men  of  that  time  to  create  it, 
seeing  how  much  we  have  lost  in  these  latter  years  all  our 
sense  of  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  nature.  Fetichisru 
appears  to  us  but  senseless  magic  when  we  cannot  make 
the  effort  of  imagination  required  to  understand  how  the 
lifeless  things  which  it  chose  for  its  gods  were  once  not 
lifeless  at  all.  The  nature  worship  which  followed  fetich- 
ism  will  seem  still  more  extravagant  until  we  realise  some 
part  of  the  awe  and  splendour  which  were  associated  with 
natural  phenomena,  and  which,  by  a  necessary  reaction, 
give  to  these  vague  appearances  a  character  and  being. 

Turning  now  from  the  strictly  religious  side  of  Yedism, 
and  from  the  beings  who  best  represent  that,  we  come 
first  to  two  who  stand  next  in  majesty  to  Indra  and  Agni, 
and  next  to  them  receive  the  greatest  meed  of  praise  in 
the  hymns.  We  want  all  the  aid  which  imagination  can 
lend  us  to  understand  fully  the  characters  of  Mitra  and 
Yanma. 

These  gods  are  sometimes  invoked  separately,  but  far 
more  often  together,  combined,  in  fact,  into  one  being, 
Mitra- Yairma.  When  thus  combined  they  become  quite 
different  beings  from  what  they  are  when  single,  and  it  is 
in  this  combination  that  the  peculiar  refinement  and  diffi- 
culty in  the  conception  of  Mitra  and  Yaruwa  has  to  be 
brought  out. 

Yariwa  is  properly  the  sky,  meaning,  as  this  word  does, 
the  coverer,  the  concealer,  and  becoming,  as  it  becomes 
in  Greek,  ovpavos.  Yanma  is  not,  however,  the  same  as 
Dyaus,  the  bright  heaven ;  it  is  rather  the  sky  of  night, 
and  as  such  the  god  Yaruwa  should  be  thought  of  when 
he  stands  alone.  By  himself,  again,  Mitra  seems  to  be  the 
sun ;  such  a  nature  is  implied  in  the  root  of  the  name — 
mid,  'to  grow  warm' — and  also  in  an  epithet  which  be- 


VAK1LZVA  AND  MITRA.  139 

longs  peculiarly  to  him,  '  the  friend  ; '  for  the  sun  god  in 
all  Aryan  creeds  is,  in  an  especial  sense,  the  friend  of 
man.1  Mitra,  moreover,  has  his  counterpart  in  another 
Aryan  system,  namely,  in  the  Iranian.  Mithras  of  the 
Persians  was,  to  all  seeming,  a  solar  deity.  But  then,  as 
the  sun  is  so  often  called  the  eye  of  Mitra  and  Varuwa,2 
it  is  clear  that  when  the  two  are  joined  Mitra  cannot  any 
longer  be  the  sun.  Now  in  the  Norse  mythology  the  sun 
is  the  eye  of  Odhinn,  but  in  this  case  Odhinn  is  the  heaven. 
We  are  justified,  then,  in  saying  that,  joined  together, 
Mitra  and  Vanma  likewise  express  some  aspect  of  the 
heaven.  They  cannot  be  absolutely  the  same  thing  ;  they 
are,  then,  two  heavens,  the  bright  and  warm  and  the  dark 
and  concealing. 

Let  us  note,  again,  that  Mitra  and  Varuna  are  in  a 
special  sense  the  sons  of  Aditi,  '  the  boundless,'  the  limit- 
less vista  of  clouds  which  we  see  at  sunrise.  There  is  a 
third  Aditya  associated  with  these  two — Aryaman.  He 
has  no  existence  by  himself,  and  seems  to  be  brought  in 
for  the  sake  of  making  up  an  orthodox  trilogy,3 

In  their  fullest  and  most  transcendental  sense,  then, 
Mitra  and  Varuna,  the  day  and  night  sky,  may  be  taken 
for  personifications  of  day  and  night.  When  combined 
into  one  being,  Mitra- Varuna,  they  are  the  image  of  the 
union  of  day  and  night — that  is  to  say,  of  the  morning. 
But  the  presentation  of  the  ideas  of  morning  and  evening 
— the  two  are  generally  coupled  together — to  the  mind 
are  very  various,  and  these  take  in  mythology  many  dif- 
ferent shapes. 

1  In  the  Vedic  creed,  however,  we  must  say  that  the  sun  god  is  this 
next  after  Agni. 

2  R.  V.  i.  50,  6  ;  115,  1  and  5 ;  vii.  63,  1 ;  x.  37,  1.     Sometimes  of  Mitra, 
Varuna,  and  Agni,  i.  115,  1. 

3  We  may  compare  these  three  with  the  curious  trilogy  who  are  intro- 
duced at  the  opening  of  the  Younger  Edda — namely,  Har,  '  the  high  ; '  Jaf  n- 
har, '  the  equally  high  ; '  and  ThriSi,  '  the  third.'  A  being  called  Thrifti  could 
never  have  a  separate  existence  apart  from  the  other  two.     His  very  name 
shows  why  he  was  invented.     In  like  manner   Mitra  and   Varuna  are 
evidently  an  equal  pair,  and  Aryaman  is  Thridi,  the  third. 


140  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  noticing  a  dispute  between  two 
learned  philologists — Max  Miiller  and  Adelbert  Kuhn. — 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  Vedic  Sarama  (which  the  one 
authority  claims  as  the  dawn",  and  the  other  as  the  wind), 
remarks  upon  the  improbability  of  so  unreal  a  phenomenon 
as  the  dawn  being  made  into  a  god.  He  has  his  own 
explanation  of  the  worship  of  the  dawn,  and  although  that 
is  a  thousandfold  harder  to  maintain  in  face  of  the  facts 
of  mythology,  we  may  admit  the  force  of  the  objections  to 
another's  theory.  The  truth,  as  I  fancy,  is  that  the  original 
god  or  goddess  is  not  the  dawn,  but  rather  the  wind  of 
morning  which  ushers  in  the  light,  and  which,  blowing 
upon  the  face  of  the  sleeper  and  awakening  him  so,  may 
well  seem  the  real  messenger  of  day.  In  some  places 
these  morning  breezes  are  very  regular,  and  not  less  con- 
stant are  those  which  accompany  the  sunset.  Curtius,  in 
the  opening  chapter  of  his  e  History  of  Greece,'  gives  a 
beautiful  picture  of  the  regularity  of  the  winds  which 
govern  the  .ZEgsean.  Every  morning  a  breeze  arises  from 
the  coasts  of  Thrace  and  blows  all  day  southward;  at 
evening  it  goes  down,  and  for  awhile  the  sea  is  calm. 
Then  almost  imperceptibly  a  gentle  wind  arises  from  the 
south.  We  need  not  wonder  if  in  early  times  the  ideas 
of  morn  and  even  are  merged  in  the  notions  of  the  wind 
at  sunrise  and  sun-setting,  and  that  they  only  after  awhile 
became  abstracted.  Therefore  Sarama  may  be  the  wind 
and  yet  the  dawn. 

There  may  be  more  or  less  of  idealism,  less  or  more  of 
simple  sensation,  intermingled  in  the  conceptions  of  the 
dawn  and  of  the  sunset.  The  most  material  sense  is  that 
of  the  winds  of  morning  and  evening.  These  in  the 
simplest  form  Mitra .  and  Varurza  are  not.  But  that  in  a 
more  general  way  Mitra  and  Varuna  represent  the  horizons 
of  morning  and  evening,  or  the  morning  and  evening  them- 
selves, I  do  not  doubt. 

Here  is  one  indication.  Mitra  and  Vanma  are  to  be 
worshipped  morning,  noon,  and  evening ;  and  Aryaman  is 


MOEN  AND  EVENING.  141 

but  the  '  third,'  the  supplement  of  their  being ;  so  we  may 
say  that  Mitra,  Varima,  and  Aryaman  are  to  be  worshipped 
morning,  noon,  and  evening.  Aryaman  would  thus  cor- 
respond to  the  midday,  Mitra  and  Varu?ia  to  the  morning 
and  evening.  Again — and  this  is  a  stronger  indication  of 
the  natures  of  Mitra  and  Varuna — Agni,  says  the  Athar- 
vaveda,  in  the  morning  is  Mitra,  in  the  evening  (or  at  night) 
is  Varwia.  Now  Agni,  as  we  have  seen,  is  always  present 
in  the  clouds  of  sunrise  and  sunset :  therefore  to  say  that 
in  the  morning  he  is  Mitra,  is  to  say  that  the  red  of  dawn 
is  Mitra ;  that  he  is  Variwa  in  the  evening  means  that 
the  red  of  evening  is  Varwia.  There  being  two  reds,  two 
meeting-places  of  the  day  and  the  night  skies  accounts 
for  the  combination  of  Mitra  and  Varuwa  into  one  Mitra- 
Varuw-a. 

I  know  that  this  attempt  to  fix  for  a  moment  the 
shifting  vane  of  popular  belief  cannot  but  create  confusion 
in  the  mind  of  the  reader.  The  weathercock  cannot  be 
held  steady.  But  though  it  is  always  turning  it  never 
shifts  far  from  the  normal  point.  I  have  but  sought  to 
register  each  of  these,  rapid  changes.  Let  us  now  free 
our  thoughts  from  this  analysis.  We  have  to  picture 
Varuraa  and  Mitra  as  a  mighty  Pair — not,  as  I  have  said, 
human  and  yet  not  pure  phenomenal— whose  presence  is 
felt  about  the  time  when  the  division  of  the  '  two  worlds,' 
the  sky  and  earth,  first  becomes  visible.  This  is  all  the 
singer  knows.  He  himself  does  not  analyse  and  register 
his  thought.  At  the  dim  hour  of  twilight,  before  the  sun 
appears,  he  is  aware  of  a  mighty  presence.  In  the 
morning,  so  he  tells  us,  when  the  sun's  horses  are  being 
unloosed,  and  while  the  thousand  lights  of  the  night 
heaven  are  still  to  be  seen,  he  catches  sight  of  the  princely 
pair,  the  noblest  of  beings.1  ( Heaven  nor  day,  nor 
streams  nor  spirits,  have  not  attained  your  godhead,  your 
greatness.3  2 

1  Bead,  for  example,  E.  V.  v.  62. 

a  Or,  more  literally,  'wealth'- (R.  V.  i.  151,  9). 


142  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

For  Mitra  and  Varutta,  then,  the  singer — the  chorus 
of  singers  and  of  priests — stands  watching  before  the 
day  break.  Ere  the  actual  Dawn  herself,  the  goddess 
Ushas,  opens  all  her  treasures,  or,  the  sun  appears,  these 
mystic  Twain  will  approach,  going  together  side  by  side 
through  heaven ; l  '  possessors  of  three  realms  of  air,' 
'  lords  of  the  dew.' 2  They  are  coming ;  and  now  we  hear 
the  chorus  rising  in  the  still  twilight.3 

If  at  thy  rising,  sun,  thou  shalt  discover 
Us  blameless  to  the  twain  Varuwa,  Mitra, 
Then,  Aditi,  we  singers  stand  in  favour 
With  all  the  gods,  and  with  thee,  Aryaman. 

Now  fco  the  twofold  world,  Varuwa,  Mitra, 

Rises  the  sun  god,  gazing  upon  men, 

Guardian  of  those  who  stay  and  those  who  wander, 

Guardian  of  right  and  wrong  among  mankind. 

From  his  high  seat  seven  steeds  with  rein  he  governs, 
Who  bright  anointed4  him,  the  Light  God  bear. 
Unto  your  throne,  both  loving,  he  approaches, 
Summoning  all  things  as  his  sheep  the  shepherd. 

Up  now  have  climbed  your  mead-besprinkled  horses : 
The  sun  god  mounted  up  the  flood  of  light. 
The  three  Adityas  made  smooth  his  journey,' 
Varuwa,  Mitra,  Aryaman,  in  concert. 

For  these  are  the  avengers  of  much  evil, 
Varuwa,  Mitra,  Aryaman,  together. 
And  in  the  house  they  cherish  holy  laws, 
The  faithful  sons  of  Aditi,  and  strong. 

1  R.  V.  i.  136,  3.'  2  R.  V.  v.  69;  ii.  41,  6. 

3  R.  V.  vii.  60.     The  meaning  of  the  first  verse  is  somewhat  obscured 
by  the  fact  of  its  containing  three  vocatives,  in  the  desire  of  the  poet  to 
include  many  divinities  within  one  canticle.     The  first  line  is  addressed 
to  the  sun — by  anticipation,  for  he  has  not  yet  risen.     The  third  speaks  to 
Aditi  or  to  the  Adityas,  Varuwa  and  Mitra.     Line  four  includes  Aryaman 
in  the  address. 

4  Literally  « butter  dripping.' 


HYMX  TO   VARILYA  AND  MITRA.  143 

These  are  not  to  deceive,  Varmia,  Mitra. 
The  fool  also  shall  they  correct  in  wisdom ; 
Good  heart  and  knowledge  giving  to  the  righteous 
Upon  his  way,  and  from 'oppression  freeing. 

As  lively  watchers  of  the  heaven  and  earth, 
As  wise  ones  bear  they  safe  the  erring  mortal. 
(In  every  river  is  there  not  some  ford  ?) 
And  they  can  hold  ns  up  in  our  affliction. 

A  sure,  well-guarded  shelter  to  the  Sudas 

Give  Aditi  and  Mitra  and  Varmza, 

Guarding  their  children,  and  their  children's  children. 

Keep  far  from  us  thy  wrath  divine,  0  Strong  One. 

The  sun  is  but  the  eye  of  Mitra  and  Varu/ia  ;  and  yet 
they,  like  the  sun,  move  for^ever  upon  fixed  paths;  they 
will  have  their  way  made  straight  through  heaven.1 
Wherefore,  seeing  that  right  is  but  straight,  they  who 
move  upon  a  straight  road  as  Mitra  and  Varuna  do,  or  as 
Surya,  the  sun  god,  does,  are  likewise  the  lovers  of  justice 
and  of  fixed  law.  *  The  lords  of  right  and  brightness,'  2 
one  poet  calls  Mitra  and  Yaruna ;  and  in  the  first 
character,  the  lovers  of  right,  they  are  perpetually  ad- 
dressed. They  are  pure  from  birth.3  Moreover,  they  watch 
over  man,  and  they  are,  as  the  hymn  just  quoted. says, 
guardians  of  right  and  wrong  (of  the  laws  of  right  and 
wrong)  among  mankind.  They  come  as  spies  into  the 
house4 — a  beautiful  image  for  the  soft  stealing  morning 
light- --and  of  man's  home  they  are,  like  Agni,  the 
guardians.5 

The  character  of  being  messengers  to  man  and  his 
friends  belongs  to  the  two  Adityas  in  the  next  degree  to 
Agni;  but  of  the  two  it  belongs  rather  to  Mitra  than  to 
Vanwa. 

There  are  not,  it  has  been  said,  many  hymns  addressed 
to  Mitra  alone.  But  here  is  one  in  which  his  righteous- 

1  Cf.  R.  V.  i.  136  2  i.  23,  5.  «  i.  23. 

4  ii.  67,  5.  6  vii.  61,  3. 


144  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

ness  and  yet  friendliness  are  expressed  with,  great  sweet- 
ness : — l 

To  man  comes  Mitra  down  in  friendly  converse. 
Mitra  it  was  who  fixed  the  earth  and  heaven. 
Unslumbering  mankind  he  watches  over. 
To  Mitra,  then,  your  full  libations  pour. 

Oh,  may  the  man  for  ever  more  be  blessed 
Who  thee,  Aditya,  serves  by  ancient  law ; 
Sheltered  by  thee,  no  death  him  touch,  no  sadness, 
No  power  oppress  him,  neither  near  nor  far. 

Prom  sickness  free,  rejoicing  in  our  strength 
And  our  stout  limbs  upon  the  round  of  earth ; 
The  ordinance  of  Aditya  duly  following  : 
So  stand  we  ever  in  the  guard  of  Mitra. 

Most  dear  is  our  Mitra,  high  in  heaven, 
Born  for  our  gracious  king,  and  widely  ruling. 
Oh,  stand  we  ever  in  his  holy  favour, 
-     Enjoying  high  and  blessed  happiness  ! 

Yea,  great  is  Mitra,  humbly  to  be  worshipped, 
To  man  descending,  to  his  singer  gracious. 
Then  let  us  pour  to  him,  the  high  Aditya, 
Upon  the  flame  a  faithful  offering. 

Sometimes  instead  of  Mitra,  Varrwa,  and  Aryaman  we 
have  Agni  associated  with  the  first  two  and  instead  of  the 
last.  Suryas,  the  sun,  for  example,  is  called  the  eye  of 
Mitra,  Varima,  and  Agni.2  And  these  three  form  an 
appropriate  trilogy  in  the  second  rank  of  worship  after 
Indra.  For,  putting  aside  that  great  god  who,  sometimes 
at  any  rate,  appears  an  absolutely  supreme  ruler,  as  much, 
above  all  others  as  Zeus  was  superior  to  the  rest  of  the 
Olympians,  putting  aside  Indra,  Agni,  Mitra,  and  Varuwa 
are  the  most  godlike  of  all  the  beings  of  the  Indian 
pantheon.  They  are,  therefore,  we  may  suppose,  the  most 
nearly  separate  from  the  region  of  phenomena,  the  most 
idealised  of  all  the  divine  phenomena. 

1  iii.  59,  7.  2  i.  116,  1. 


THE  ASVIff.  145 

For  an  example  of  the  difference  between  Mitra  and 
Vartma,  as  we  see  them  in  the  hymns  and  that  which 
they  would  have  appeared  had  they  been  nothing  more 
than  the  winds  of  morning  in  their  physical  sense, 
we  may  compare  the  two  Adityas  with  the  two  Asvin. 
These  last  two  were  the  Dioscuri  of  Indian  mythology. 
By  name  they  were  simply  the  horsemen,  or  rather 
the  charioteers — no  actual  riding  on  horseback,  as  in  the 
later  example  of  the  Greek  twin  brethren,  being  imagined 
in  their  case.1  As  they  were  specially  noted  for  the 
swiftness  of  their  flight,  they  must,  one  would  suppose, 
have  been  embodiments  of  winds.  I  have,  in  fact,  no 
doubt  that  they  were  simply  the  morning  and  evening 
breezes,  and  essentially  the  same  as  the  Sarameyas,  the 
sons  of  Sarama,  the  dawn.  They  were,  too,  essentially 
the  same  as  Mitra  and  Varuwa  (as  morning  and  evening), 
only  that  the  latter  were  much  more  complex  in  nature 
and  much  more  idealised. 

A  third  representation  of  the  dawn  is  the  maiden 
Ushas,  the  sister  of  the  Asvin,  whom  they  carry  away  in 
their  swift  chariots  when  the  sun  pursues  her.  We  see 
that  the  Yedic  mythopcoist  is  never  weary  of  personifying 
this  particular  part  of  celestial  nature.  It  accords  with 
this  peculiarity  of  his  creed  that  the  dawn  is  almost 
always  the  hour  of  his  worship.  The  hymns  sung  at  mid- 
day or  at  sunset  are  very  few  compared  with  those  which 
usher  in  the  day.  Though  it  were  perhaps  '  to  consider 
too  curiously '  should  one  attempt  to  give  to  each  of  these 
various  personifications  of  the  dawn  a  distinct  phenomenal 
existence,  yet  for  the  sake  of  presenting  them  more  clearly 
before  the  imagination,  so  that  each  may  play  his  part 

1  They  belong  to  a  time  when  horsemanship,  in  the  modern  sense,  was 
not  yet  known.  We  find,  that  the  word  ahw,  a  horse,  comes,  from  its  con- 
nection with  the  chariot  of  the  sun  (drawn  by  seven  horses,  the  Harits- 
Charites),  to  signify  the  number  seven.  This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  to 
the  Vedic  Indian  the  word  '  horse '  naturally  suggested  the  sun  god.  Where- 
fore we  cannot  doubt  that  the  Asvin  had  originally  drawn  the  car  of  the 
sun  god.  Before  Suryas  had  seven  horses  he  probably  possessed  two  only 

L 


146  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

in  the  Indian's  mythic  day,  I  will  dispose  them  thus  :— 
The  first  white  streak  of  light  which  showed  the  Indian 
the  separation  between  earth  and  sky  opened  before  the 
eye  of  fancy  the  illimitable  space  which  seemed  to  stretch 
beyond  that  break.  This,  which  is  what  is  called  the 
white  dawn — alba,  aube — was  the  entry  of  Mitra  and 
Varima,  the  revelation  of  the  'boundless'  Adityas.  It 
was  through  a  twilight  air,  a  windless  twilight  morning 
air,  that  the  song  we  heard  but  now  broke  upon  our  ears. 
Anon  springs  up  the  breeze,  or"  the  twin  winds  (one,  yet 
double,  because  they  are  of  night  as  well  as  of  morning), 
the  Asvin,  driving  rapidly  through  the  quickly  lightening 
space ;  and  after  them  comes  their  sister  the  Eed  Dawn, 
Aurora,  allied  to  Aura,  the  breeze,  but  not  identical  there- 
with. She  is  Ushas.  Close  behind  her,  in  loving  chase, 
comes  Suryas,  the  sun. 

But  let  us  leave  this  rapid  catalogue  of  the  morning 
sights  and  follow  at  a  slower  pace  the  course  of  the 
mythic  day  as  its  events  are  told  us  in  the  hymns.  Let  us 
go  back  to  our  chorus*  of  priests,  still  waiting  till  the  sun 
shall  rise.  Yaruna  and  Mitra  appear  chiefly  to  the  eye  of 
faith ;  but  other,  lesser  things  are  more  real.  These  lesser 
beings  of  the  pantheon  are,  compared  with  the  great 
gods,  like  to  heroes  or  demi-gods  and  goddesses.  Even 
the  sun  (Surya)  we  are  compelled  to  place  generally  in 
this  category.  First  comes  Ushas,  the  Dawn,  opening  the 
dark  gates  of  night.  She  brings  forth  her  car  and  oxen 
to  run  her  course.  With  lovely  dress  she  clothes  herself, 
like  a  dancer,  and  unbears  her  bosom  to  the  sun  god. 
'Making  light  for  all  the  world,  Ushas  has  opened  the 
darkness  as  a  cow  her  stall.'  And  once  again  uprises  the 
priestly  chorus  with  its  Muezzin  call  to  prayer  : —  * 

Dawn,  full  of  wisdom,  rich  in  everything, 

Fairest,  attend  the  singers'  song  of  praise. 

Oh !  thou  rich  goddess,  old,  yet  ever  young, 

Thou,  all-dispenser,  in  due  order  comest ! 
1  iii.  61. 


THE  MYTHIC  DAY.  147 

Shine  forth,  O  goddess,  thine  eternal  morning, 
With  thy  bright  cars  onr  song  of  praise  awakening. 
Thee  draw  through  heaven  the  well-yoked  team  of  horses, 
The  horses  golden  bright,  that  shine  afar. 

Enlightener  of  all  being,  breath  of  morning, 
Thou  holdest  up  aloft  the  light  of  gods. 
Unto  one  goal  ever  thy  course  pursuing, 
Oh,  roll  towards  us  now  thy  wheel  again  ! 

Opening  at  once  her  girdle,  she  appears, 
The  lovely  Dawn,  the  ruler  of  the  stalls. 
She,  light-producing,  wonder-working,  noble, 
Up  mounted  from  the  coast  of  earth  and  heaven. 

Up,  up,  and  bring  to  meet  the  Dawn,  the  goddess, 
Bright  beaming  now,  your  humble  song  of  praise. 
To  heaven  climbed  up  her  ray,  the  sweet  dew  bearing ; 
Joying  to  shine,  the  airy  space  it  filled. 

With  beams  of  heaven  the  Pure  One  was  awakened  ; 
The  Rich  One's  ray  mounted  through  both  the  worlds. 
To  IJshas  goest  thon,  Agiii,  with  a  prayer 
For  goodly  wealth,  when  she  bright  shining  comes. 

Unspeakably  beautiful  as  poeins  are  all  these  dawn 
hymns,  but  not,  like  those  addressed  to  the  greater  gods, 
full  of  awe  and  worship.  The  singer  has  passed  out  of 
that  region,  when  he  compares  Ushas  to  a  dancer,  and  tells 
of  her  unbaring  her  bosom  like  the  udder  of  the  cow. 
Nothing  is  there  either,  we  observe,  in  the  above  hymn 
of  a  strongly  moral  cast — no  more  mention  of  righteous- 
ness and  the  guardians  of  the  law.  The  blessings  which 
daylight  brings  are  not  of  this  sort.  Daylight  is  the  all- 
dispenser,  because,  in  making  seen  what  was  before  hid, 
she  seems  to  give  it  to  us  once  again.  But  she  is  not  in 
any  other  sense  the  creator  or  governor  of  the  world. 

Next  after  Ushas  comes  the  sun  god,  Surya,  himself. 

Arise  before  us,  Surya,  again  ; 

As  sounds  our  song,  come  with  thy  coursers  swift.1 

1  vii.  62,  2. 
i,  2 


148  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

He  comes  for  all  men  alike — the  '  just  and  the  unjust,'  as 
the  Bible  has  it — dragging  his  wheel ; J  the  eye  of  Mitra 
and  Vartma ;  he  who  rolls  up  the  darkness  like  a  garment : 
he  throws  off  his  garment,  his  dark  cloak.2  e  Thou  risest  for 
the  race  of  gods ;  thou  risest  for  the  human  race,  risest  for 
all,  thy  light  to  show.' 3  The  stars  steal  away  like  thieves 
before  the  all-seeing  god  of  day.  He,  like  Agni  and  Mitra, 
looks  friendly  down  upon  the  world  and  the  ways  of  men; 
he  sends  the  rays,  his  messengers,  to  earth.  He  is  a 
warrior,  and  comes  waving  his  banner ; 4  he  is  a  charioteer, 
and  drives  seven  mares — the  harits,  or  the  charites  of 
Greek  mythology.  Sometimes  his  flight  is  winged  by  the 
wind ; 5  and  sometimes  he,  with  the  Wind  (Yayu)  and  with 
A.gni,  forms  another  trilogy  in  the  Yedic  pantheon. 

From  heaven  shall  Savitar  protect  us, 
And  from  the  air  the  Wind, 
And  Agni  from  the  earth. 

O  Savifcar,  thy  fiery  ray 

Is  dearer  than  a  hundred  gifts. 

Protect  us  from  .the  lightning  crash. 

God  Savitar,  thy  bright  glance  send ; 
And  oh,  thou  Wind,  do  thou  too  send  ; 
And,  Forger,6  bright  beams  forge  for  us.7 

But  that  the  sun  god  cannot,  more  than  Asrni,  escape 
the  consequences  of  his  actual  nature,  and  therefore  can- 
not conform  to  the  law  of  mortals,  we  also  see.  Agni 
devours  his  father  and  mother.  Surya  is  the  child  of  the 
Dawn  ;  and  yet  he  pursues  her  as  a  lover,  and  at  the  last, 
just  before  the  day  ends,  he  weds  her.  This  marriage 
can  only  take  place  at  the  last  hour  of  the  day ;  it  is  the 
signal  of  the  sun's  own  death.  Here  is  the  dark  story  of 
crime  which  wrought  the  doom  of  Thebes :  it  is  the 

1  vii.  63. 

2  iv.  13,  4,  where  the  sun  is  addressed  under  the  name  of  Savitar. 
8  i.  50,  5.  «  iv.  13,  2.  5  x.  170. 

6  Agni  as  Tvashtar,  the  forger.  7  x.  158. 


NIV] 


THE  MYTHIC  DAY. 

marriage  of  (Edipus  and  locaste.  Here  it  is  shadowed 
forth  in  the  pure  poetry  of  natural  mythology  ;  afterwards 
it  was  crystallised  into  a  legend. 

We  might  stay  for  ever  at  this  sunrise,  unravelling 
the  myths  which  cling  about  this  most  human  of  the 
gods.  But  time  will  nob  stay ;  the  day  presses  onwards, 
and  each  stage  brings  with  it  some  new  event.  We  saw, 
in  the  language  of  a  Vedic  poet, 

The  watcher,  him  who  never  tires, 
Who  wanders  up  and  down  upon  his  path, 
Veiling  himself  in  things  alike  and  unlike, 
Who  goeth  here  and  there  about  the  world. 

And  now  we  must  let  him  pass  on  his  way  and  note  what 
follows. 

The  breezes,  which  were  gentle  in  the  morning,  and  for 
that  reason  were  feigned  to  be  the  sons  of  Prishni,  the 
dew,1  strengthen  as  the  day  grows  older ;  they  overcloud 
the  sky,  and  the  storm  approaches.  This  is  the  coming 
of  Indra  in  his  might.  The  calm  of  morning  is  forgotten  ; 
the  battle  of  midday  begins.  Midday  is  the  time  of 
labour  and  duty,  and  to  the  fiercer  Aryas  the  word  duty 
meant  war.  It  is  for  this  great  contest  that  Indra  has 
long  been  arming  himself.  The  hundred  citadels  of  $am- 
baras,  where  the  giant  has  hid  the  rains  which  were 
meant  to  water  the  earth,  are  now  seen  towering  in  the 
sky,  peak  above  peak,  battlement  over  battlement. 
Against  these  Indra  sallies  forth  to  fight,  but  he  does  not 
go  alone.  The  sons  of  Prishni,  who  are  the  winds  or  the 
storms,  have  been  preparing  themselves  likewise.  At 
first  they  were  things  of  nought ;  now  they  are  mighty 
heroes  armed  with  the  flash  and  the  thunder.  'They 
spring  up  of  their  own  strength ;  they  are  dight  in  golden 
armour ;  their  spears  send  forth  sparks  of  fire.' 2  These 

'  Prokris.  2  ii.  34 ;  vi.  66,  &c. 


150  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

are  the  '  unapproachable  host '  of  Marats,1  who  wander 
through  the  paths  of  air  in  their  swift  cars ;  sometimes 
they  come  so  near  the  earth  that  men  hear  the  crack  of 
their  driving  whips.2 

Where  is  the  fair  assemblage  of  heroes, 

The  sons  of  Rudra,3  with  their  bright  horses  ? 

For  of  their  birth  knoweth  no  man  other, 

Only  themselves  their  wondrous  4  descent. 

The  light  they  flash  upon  one  another ; 

The  eagles  fought,  the  winds  were  raging; 

But  this  secret  knoweth  the  wise  man. 

Once  that  Prishni  her  udder  gave  them. 8 

Our  race  of  heroes,  through  the  Maruts  be  it 

Ever  victorious  in  reaping  of  men. 

On  their  way  they  hasten,  in  brightness  the  brightest, 

Equal  in  beauty,  unequalled  in  might.6 

One  hymn  of  the  Eig  Yeda  seems  to  be  adapted  to  this 
storm  hour  of  the  day,  and  to  describe  the  very  moment 
when  Indra  comes  forth  to  battle,  and  there  is  joined  by 
his  comrades.  This  hymn  has  been  translated  by  Prof. 
Max  Miiller,  and  of  his  translation  I  avail  myself.7 

First  speaks  the  sacrificing  priest : — 

With  what  splendour  are  the  Maruts  all  equally  endowed, 
they  who  are  of  the  same  age  and  dwell  in  the  same  house  ! 
With  what  thoughts  !  From  whence  are  they  come  ? 

1  The  Maruts  are  probably  connected  etymologically  with  Mars  (cf. 
Z.  /.  v.  Sp.  v.  387,  &c. ;  xvi.  162).  2  v.  63,  5. 

s  Rudra  is  also  a  storm  god.  His  name  means  the  flash  ;  that  of  the 
Maruts  the  storm.  4  Unique. 

5  Prishni  being  here  and  in  many  other  places  imaged  as  a  cow. 

8  vii.  56.  This  poem  has  quite  an  Eddaic  ring ;  it  is  curious,  therefore, 
to  find  that  the  truest  counterparts  of  the  Vedic  Maruts  are  to  be  sought 
in  the  Valkyriur  of  the  North  (see  Ch.  VII.")  The  hymns  addressed  to  the 
Maruts,  which  occur  in  the  first  book  of  the  Rig  Veda,  have  been  completely 
and  admirably  translated  by  Professor  Max  Miiller.  I  forbear,  then,  from 
giving  more  than  one  example  of  these,  beautiful  as  they  are,  and  content 
myself  with  referring  the  reader  to  Professor  Muller's  translation. 

7  The  hymn  is  from  K.  V.  i.  165. 


THE  MYTHIC  DAY.  151 

THE  MARUTS  SPEAK. 

From  whence,  0  Indra,  dost  thou  come  alone,  thou.  who 
art  mighty  ?  0  lord  of  men,  what  has  thus  happened  unto 
thee  ?  Thou  greetest  (us)  when  thou  comest  together  with  (us) 
the  bright  (Maruts).  Tell  us,  then,  thou  with  thy  bay  horses, 
what  thou  hast  against  us. 

INDRA  SPEAKS. 

The  sacred  songs  are  mine,  (mine  are)  the  prayers ;  sweet 
are  the  libations  !  My  strength  rises  ;  my  thunderbolt  is  hurled 
forth.  They  call  for  me  ;  the  prayers  yearn  for  me.  Here  are 
my  horses ;  they  carry  me  towards  them. 

THE  MARUTS. 

Therefore  in  company  with  our  strong  friends,  having 
adorned  our  bodies,  we  now  harness  our  fallow  deer  with  all  our 
might;  for,  Indra,  according  to  thy  custom,  thou  hast  been  with  us. 

INDRA. 

Where,  0  Maruts,  was  that  custom  of  yours,  that  you  should 
join  me,  who  am  alone  in  the  killing  of  Ahi  ?  I,  indeed,  am. 
terrible,  strong,  powerful.  I  escaped  from  the  blows  of  every 
enemy. 

THE  MARUTS. 

Thou  hast  achieved  much  with  us  as  companions.  With 
the  same  valour,  O  hero,  let  us  achieve,  then,  many  things  !  O 
thou  most  powerful !  0  Indra !  whatever  we,  0  Maruts,  wish 
with  our  heart. 

INDRA. 

I  slew  Yritra,  0  Maruts,  with  (Indra's)  might,  having  grown 
strong  through  mine  own  vigour ;  I,  who  hold  the  thunderbolt  in 
my  arms,  I  have  made  these  all-brilliant  waters  to  flow  freely  for 
man. 

THE  MARUTS. 

Nothing,  0  powerful  lord,  is  strong  before  thee  ;  no  one  is 
known  among  the  gods  like  unto  thee.  No  one  who  is  now  born 
will  come  near,  no  one  who  has  been  born.  Do  what  has  to  be 
done,  thou  who  hast  grown  so  strong. 


152  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

INDRA. 

Almighty  power  be  mine  aloiie,  whatever  I  may  do,  daring 
in  my  heart ;  for  I  indeed,  0  Maruts,  am  known  as  terrible  ;  of 
all  that  I  threw  down  I,  Indra,  am  the  lord. 

0  Maruts,  now  your  praise  has  pleased  me,  the  glorious 
hymn  which  ye  have  made  for  me,  ye  men !  for  me,  for  Indra, 
for  the  powerful  hero,  as  friends  for  a  friend,  for  your  own  sake 
and  by  your  own  efforts. 

Truly,  there  they  are,  shining  towards  me,  assuming  blame- 
less glory,  assuming  vigour.  0  Marnts,  wherever  I  have  looked 
for  you,  you  have  appeared  to  me  in  bright  splendour.  Appear  to 
me  also  now. 

THE  SACRIFICER  SPEAKS,  AND  so  ENDS. 

Who  has  magnified  you  here,  0  Marnts  ?  Come  hither, 
0  friends !  towards  your  friends.  Ye  brilliant  Maruts,  cherish 
these  prayers,  and  be  mindful  of  these  my  rites 

We  see  from  this  that  the  Maruts  have  no  very  dis- 
tinct existence  or  purpose  alone ;  and,  indeed,  their 
appearing  always  in  the  plural  number  would  be  enough 
to  show  us  that  they  are  regarded  rather  as  heroes  than 
as  gods.  It  is  very  possible  they  were  often  confounded 
with  the  dead  ancestors.1  Wherefore  their  coming  to  the 
fight  must  be  taken  as  prototypical  of  the  coming  of  the 
Greek  heroes  to  the  great  fields  of  battle — to  Marathon, 
for  example,  and  to  Platsea.  It  is  interesting  to  see  in 
the  Greek  legends  that  the  Dioscuri  are  often  associated 
with  the  heroes  and  dead  ancestors ;  for  the  Dioscuri  are 
the  same  witb  the  Asvin,  and  therefore,  as  the  winds  of 
morning  and  evening,  are  the  proper  companions  for  the 
storm  gods.  The  Maruts  are  all  equal :  none  is  before  or 
after  another ;  none  is  greater  or  less  than  another ;  '  of 
the  same  age,  dwelling  in  the  same  bouse,  endowed  witb 
equal  splendour.5  2  Their  proper  sphere  is  the  midday ; 
sometimes,  though,  they  come  awakening  the  night.  Tbey 
slay  the  elephant,  the  buffalo,  the  lion  ;  they  are  unerring 
marksmen;  they  draw  milk  from  heaven's  udder;  they 
1  Gubernatis,  Lettwre,  &c.,  p.  150.  2  i.  166. 


THE  MYTHIC  DAY.  153 

milk  the  thunder  cloud.1  *  To  whom  go  ye,  ye  shakers, 
and  by  what  art,  along  these  airy  paths  ?  Strong  must 
your  weapons  be,  and  mighty  ye  yourselves,  not  like  the 
might  of  wretched  mortals.' 2 

And  so  they  play  their  part.  The  last  scene  shifts  to 
day's  ending,  when  the  sun  god  is  again  prayed  to  ere  he 
leaves  the  earth,  for  he  is  going  to  that  other  world,  his 
nightly  home,  where  he  will  meet  the  dead  fathers  (pitris) 
of  the  tribe.  Savitar  is  especially  the  evening  sun.  He 
unyokes  the  steeds  who  have  borne  him  along  his  tedious 
path ;  he  calls  the  wanderer  to  rest  from  his  journey,  the 
housewife  from  her  web,  and  all  men  from  their  labour ; 
he  watches  all  things  ever  dim,  and  dimmer  and  a  glory 
done.  And  now,  in  a  more  subdued  note,  the  singer  pays 
his  final  vows  to  this  god,  and  commits  himself  and  all 
that  he  holds  dear  into  his  care. 

Savitar,  the  god,  arose,  in  power  arose, 
His  quick  deeds  and  his  jonrney  to  renew. 
He  'tis  who  to  all  gods  dispenses  treasure, 
And  blesses  those  who  call  him  to  the  feast. 

The  god  stands  up,  and  stretches  forth  his  arm, 
Raises  his  hand,  and  all  obedient  wait ; 
For  all  the  waters  to  his  service  bend, 
And  the  winds  even  on  his  path  are  stilled. 

Now  he  unyokes  the  horses  who  have  borne  him  ; 
The  wanderer  from  his  travel  now  he  frees  ; 
The  Serpent-slayer's  3  fury  now  is  stayed  ; 
At  Savitar's  command  come  night  and  peace. 

And  now  rolls  up  the  spinning  wife  her  web ; 
The  labourer  in  the  field  his  labour  leaves  ; 

And  to  the  household  folk  beneath  the  roof 
The  household  fire  imparts  their  share  of  light. 


1  i.  64,  8.  2  E.  V.  i.  39. 

8  India's  1    I  have,  to  avoid  monotony,  taken  some  slight  liberties  with 
the  voices  of  the  verbs  in  this  poem. 


154  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

He  who  to  work  went  forth  is  now  returned ; 
The  longing  of  all  wanderers  turns  toward  home ; 
Leaving  his  toil,  goes  each  man  to  his  house : 
The  universal  mover  orders  so. 

In  the  water  settedst  thou  the  water's  heir,1 
On  the  firm  earth  badst  the  wild  beast  to  roam, 
And  in  the  wood  the  fowl.    Nothing,  0  god, 
Great  Savitar,  thy  will  dares  violate. 

And,  as  he  can,  each  fish  in  the  womb  of  water 
(Who  restless  flits  about)  seeks  now  his  rest ; 
The  bird  2  makes  for  his  nest,  cattle  for  their  stall : 
To  their  own  home  all  beasts  the  sun  god  sends. 

'Tis  he  whose  ordinance  none  dare  slight ;  not  Indra, 

Rudra,  Yaruwa,  Mitra,  Aryaman, 

Nor  evil  spirits  even.      Savitar, 

On  him,  on  him,  with  humble  heart  I  call. 

>  The  fish.  2  Lit. '  the  egg's  son.' 


MANYSIDEDNESS  OF  GKEEK  BELIEF.  155 


CHAPTEE  TV 

ZEUS,   APOLLO,   ATHENA. 

At  yap,  Zsv  TS  irdrsp  KOI  'AOrjvalrj  teal  " 

WOULD  that  it  were  more  easy  to  draw  out  of  the  bright 
and  varied  fabric  of  Greek  religious  thought  those  threads 
which  form  the  main  substance  of  the  tissue ;  those  deep 
and  essential  beliefs  over  which  the  rest  of  the  religion 
and  mythology  of  Hellas  is  but  a  woven  pattern.  But 
for  many  reasons  this  is  very  hard  to  do.  First,  because 
Gieece  or  Hellas  can  scarcely  be  looked  upon  as  the 
country  of  a  single  people,  while  it  holds  such  a  variety  of 
national  sentiment,  and  shows  as  many  instances  of 
national  discord  as  of  unity.  And  secondly,  because  the 
shifting  and  subtle  fancy  of  the  people  afforded  a  very 
unstable  foundation  for  the  building  up  of  any  creed ;  so 
that  what  was  believed  among  them  one  day  might  very 
likely  be  laughed  at  the  next.  Just  by  reason  of  this  same 
subtlety  and  swiftness  of  thought,  Greek  religion,  at  the 
time  of  our  first  contact  with  it,  has  already  passed 
through  its  earlier  stages,  and  polytheism  is  seen  no 
longer  in  a  condition  of  growth,  but  of  decay.  Homer 
and  the  writers  of  the  Homeric  cycle  alone  show  in  the 
formation  of  their  mythology  anything  approaching  to 
a  direct  contact  with  nature.  They  crystallise  belief,  and 
the  later  poets  draw  from  them ;  yet  even  with  Homer 
the  age  of  creation  has  ceased,  the  age  of  criticism  and 
scepticism  has  begun.  At  any  rate  the  gods  have  strayed 
far  away  from  the  region  to  which  by  nature  they  belong. 
They  have  become  anthropomorphised :  imagination  is 
occupied  in  following  their  lives  and  deeds  as  it  would  the 


156  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

lives  of  mortals.  Fancy  and  the  dramatic  and  creative 
faculties  have  as  much  to  do  with  them  as  has  genuine  be- 
lief; there  is  no  longer  a  warranty  that  the  character  and 
actions  of  these  gods  will  follow  the  simple  lines  of  fact. 

Once,  when  a  god  was  truly  a  nature  god,  and  when 
the  phenomena  of  nature  were  all  truly  divine,  the  light- 
ning and  the  hail,  the  frost  and  the  dew,  the  wind  and  all 
the  waves  of  the  sea,  were  alike  strange  and  mystic ;  and 
the  alternations  of  these  things  were  chronicled  with 
reverent  awe.  Ifc  was  inconceivable  then  that  man  should 
set  himself  to  invent  stories  of  their  doings,  because  all 
invention  must  fall  infinitely  short  of  the  wonder  of  truth. 
In  Homer  we  discover  that  much  of  this  feeling  has 
already  died  away.  The  thunderer  is  still  the  thunderer, 
but  he  is  also  a  quarrelsome  husband,  a  tyrannous  and 
capricious  king.  Hera,  his  feminine  counterpart,  is  queen 
of  heaven ;  but  she  is  also  the  very  type  of  a  shrewish 
wife.  It  follows  that  in  spite — nay,  in  part  because — of  the 
wondrous  richness  and  variety  of  Greek  religious  myths, 
it  is  not  in  these  that  the  character  of  nature  worship  can 
be  most  effectually  studied;  wherefore,  perhaps,  the  con- 
stant battle  which  rages  round  the  interpretation  of  Greek 
mythology.  The  Teutonic  myths  are  simpler  and  far  more 
meagre  ;  but  they  show  us,  more  clearly  than  the  Greek 
do,  the  history  of  their  growth.  The  Vedic  hymns,  though 
they  tell  us  no  tales,  are  more  deeply  imbued  than  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  are  with  a  conviction  of  the  reality 
of  all  they  describe,  and  the  gods  themselves  are  nearer  to 
nature.  Let  it  be,  then,  with  an  eye  often  directed  to 
these  neighbour  systems — to  the  Teutonic  and  Celtic 
beliefs  upon  the  one  side,  and  upon  the  other  to  those  dis- 
cernible in  the  Yedas — that  the  student  set  himself  to 
the  task  of  unravelling  the  intricacies  of  Greek  mythology. 

The  comparative  method  we  require  is  something 
much  deeper  than  the  comparison  of  mere  words  and 
phrases.  The  more  we  look  into  the  history  of  Aryan 
creeds,  the  more  are  we  struck  by  the  recurrence  in  them 


ZEUS,  APOLLO,   AND  ATHENE.  157 

of  certain  fixed  sentiments  or  forms  of  belief,  which 
express  themselves  through  different  personalities  in  the 
different  system?.  And  we  soon  come  to  see  that  thought 
has  in  these  cases  been  governed  by  laws  scarcely  less 
rigid  than  those  which  have  determined  it  in  the  formation 
of  language.  It  is  probable  too  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
language  so  in  the  case  of  mythology,  a  great  number  of 
the  laws  of  development  are  confined  to  the  special  race 
with  which  we  are  dealing,  and  have  been  different  among 
Semitic  people,  different  again  among  Mongols  or  Negroes. 
Unless  we  can  fathom  the  deeper  sources  of  religious 
thought  in  Hellas,  we  can  never  understand  her  mytho- 
logy, which  is  but  a  stream  flowing  from  those  deep 
fountains ;  we  must  first  find  out  where  lay  the  real 
belief — that  is  to  say,  the  germ  of  genuine  emotion — then 
we  shall  be  able  to  understand  of  what  nature  was  the 
Aberglaube  which  imagination  and  poetry  fostered  from 
that  seed.  Now,  so  far  as  the  later  and  historic  Greece  is 
concerned,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  invocation  quoted  a 
moment  ago — 

Would  Father  Zens,  and  Athene,  and  Apollo — 

occurring  so  frequently  in  Homer,1  really  gives  an  answer 
to  our  first  enquiry,  and  that  the  trilogy  or  trinity,  thus 
specially  united,  represents  the  highest  attainment  of 
Hellas  in  the  idealism  of  belief.  And  if  we  imagine  a 
Greek,  in  the  solitude  of  his  chamber,  or  in  the  more 
moving  solitude  of  woods  and  meadows,  stirred  with 
some  sudden  strong  religious  impulse,  we  may  guess  that 
the  image  of  one  of  these  three  greater  divinities,  the 
image  of  Zeus,  of  Apollo,  or  of  Athene,  would  be  likely  to 
rise  before  his  mental  sight.  These  three  deities,  there- 
fore, are  they  who  have  in  the  end  given  the  tone  to 
Greek  thought  on  religious  matters,  and  to  their  natures 
those  of  the  other  divinities  have  insensibly  been  obliged 

1  II.  ii.  371 ;  iv.  288 ;  vii.  132 ;  xvi.  97.      Od.  iv.  341  ;  vii.  311 ;  xviii. 
235  j  xxiv.  376. 


158  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

to  conform  themselves.  And  though,  we  have  special 
divinities  locally  honoured,  and  in  particular  places  held 
to  be  supreme,  as  Hera  at  Argos,  Aphrodite  in  Cyprus, 
Hermes  in  Arcadia,  Dionysus  in  Thrace ;  such  local  wor- 
ship must  not  be  taken  as  evidence  against  the  universal, 
the  pan-Hellenic  character  of  the  other.  Because  in  the 
Middle  Ages  at  Tours  St.  Martin  was  more  often  invoked 
than  Christ  or  the  Father,  and  at  Cologne  the  Three  Kings, 
St.  Remigius  at  Rheims,  St.  Ambrose  at  Milan — at  each 
place,  that  is  to  say,  its  special  patron  saint — it  does  not 
argue  that  any  of  those  who  practised  these  special  forms 
of  worship  supposed  that  in  the  governance  of  the  world 
at  large  the  saints  were  more  powerful  than  the  Trinity. 
No  more  must  we  suppose  that,  though  the  rivalry  of  the 
Greek  cities  led  to  the  upholding  of  each  city's  patron  in 
opposition  to  some  other  god,  the  Greeks  had  not  like- 
wise their  points  of  religious  unity,  or  that  there  were  no 
personalities  specially  selected  for  contemplation  in  that 
universal  sense,  who  must  of  necessity  have  been  the  chief 
gods  of  Hellas. 

In  the  Greek  images  of  the  gods  there  is  often  so  little 
individuality  that,  if  we  took  away  some  external  attributes 
or  symbols  which  accompany  the  figures,  and  which  are 
no  more  than  a  kind  of  labels  to  them,  we  might  be  in 
danger  of  confounding  one  divinity  with  another  ;  of  mis- 
taking Athene  for  Hera,  Hermes  for  Apollo,  Poseidon  or 
Hades  for  Zeus.  In  the  case  of  the  Panathenaic  Frieze, 
for  instance,  that  sculptured  procession  which  once 
adorned  the  second  wall  of  the  Parthenon,  we  do  really 
find  ourselves  in  such  a  dilemma.  In  the  centre  of  the 
composition  is  a  group  of  persons,  whom,  by  their  size, 
above  the  mortal  stature,  we  know  to  be  intended  for  gods, 
but  for  what  particular  ones  among  the  Olympians  it  is 
still  a  matter  of  dispute.  In  the  case  of  one  or  two  we 
are  able  to  fall  back  upon  the  helping  symbol — as  the 
shoes  and  petasos  of  Hermes;  the  aegis  of  Athene;  the 
wings  of  Eros — but  we  shall  never  get  beyond  a  probable 


KEPKESENTATION  IN  AET.  159 

conjecture  for  the  greater  number.  The  difficulty  does 
not  arise  solely  nor  even  chiefly  from  the  disfigurement  of 
the  faces  in  this  case.  Some  of  them,  at  all  events,  are 
well  preserved ;  yet  we  cannot  say  that  these  are  dis- 
tinguishable by  the  countenance  alone.  Poseidon,  for  all 
the  character  which  he  displays,  might  as  well  be  /eus.1 

I  do  not  say  that  in  general  the  antiquarian  is  left 
quite  at  a  loss.  His  skill  is  to  interpret  small  signs  which 
would  be  unnoticed  by  common  observers ;  to  read,  as  it 
were,  the  mind  of  the  artist,  and  not  look  from  the  posi- 
tion of  those  for  whose  sake  the  artist  wrought.  But  the 
existence  of  such  means  of  discrimination  does  not  affect 
the  general  truth  of  the  proposition,  that  to  the  ordinary 
glance,  to  anyone  not  initiated  into  the  secrets  of  the 
worker,  there  would  be  such  a  class  likeness  among  certain 
orders  of  the  divine  beings  that  no  single  individuality 
would  seem  to  step  out  from  among  them.  And  if  we 
take  this  art  to  reflect — as  art  always  seems  to  reflect  the 
best — the  popular  religion  of  the  day,  we  must  confess 
that  no  very  strong  individuality  would  have  been  felt  to 
attach  to  any  one  among  the  gods. 

But  art  itself  comes  at  a  late  epoch  in  the  history  of 
Greece,  and  no  condition  of  thought  which  existed  then 
is  proof  of  like  thoughts  in  the  heroic  age,  centuries 
before,  when  as  yet  Greek  sculpture  was  scarcely  born. 
The  religion  which  finds  such  an  expression  as  in  the 
sculpture  of  the  days  of  Pheidias  is  very  different  from 
the  creed  of  primitive  times.  Polytheism  has  come  near  to 
its  latter  days  when  the  gods  have  grown  so  much  alike, 
and  when  all  seem  to  express  the  same  ideal.  So  far  as 
the  Greek  gods  are  now  not  men,  so  far  as  they  contain 
some  divine  nature  in  them,  this  nature  is  the  same  for 
all.  And  the  god-like  idea,  or,  to  put  it  more  in  the 

1  See  Guide  to  the  Elgin  Room,  British  Museum,  by  C.  T.  Newton, 
Michaelis'  Parthenon,  and  Flasch's  Zum  Parthenon.  Some  of  the  points 
in  dispute  are  very  curious;  that,  for  example,  between  the  maiden 
Artemis  and  the  sad  matron  Demeter  as  the  bearer  of  the  torch. 


160  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

language  of  philosophy,  the  abstract  conception  of  a  god, 
will  soon  attach  specially  to  some  particular  member  of 
the  pantheon,  who,  like  the  later  Zeus  of  the  Greeks,  will 
thus  become  the  god  par  excellence,  o  6zos  ;  then  the  mono- 
theistic goal  will  have  been  reached.  For  when  in  character 
the  gods  have  become  much  the  same,  the  difference  be- 
tween one  and  another  of  them  must  depend  altogether 
on  external  surroundings.  Some  may  have  a  greater  ma- 
jesty in  the  eyes  of  their  worshippers,  and  receive  more 
reverence;  but  it  is  because  their  rule  is  wider,  not  be- 
cause they  are  in  themselves  different  from  their  brothers. 
But  for  the  limit  of  their  various  domains  all  the  gods 
would  be  alike  ;  they  are  many  kings,  whose  empires  are 
not  of  the  same  extent,  yet  still  all  kings.  And  the  most 
powerful  anon  becomes  in  heaven,  as  he  would  become  on 
earth,  an  over-king  to  all  the  others,  the  bretwalda,  as  it 
were,  of  the  Olympian  realm,  until  at  last  he  brings  the 
rest  under  him,  and  reigns  alone.  He  is  the  single  god ; 
the  other  divine  powers  sink  to  positions  like  those  which 
occupy  the  saints  of  the  mediaeval  calendar. 

Amid  this  general  uniformity  in  the  representation  of 
the  Greek  divinities  there  is  nevertheless  one  point  of 
separation.  The  goddesses  are  all  alike  and  all  young; 
the  matron  cannot  be  distinguished  from  the  maid :  but 
among  the  gods  there  is  the  difference  between  the  bearded 
and  the  beardless  one,  the  mature  god  and  the  youthful 
god — in  a  word,  between  Zeus  and  Apollo.  And  it  is  the 
Zeus  and  Apollo  images  that  convert  to  a  likeness  to  them- 
selves those  of  the  other  gods.  That  fair  young  face  which 
we  see  in  its  dawn  in  archaic  sculpture,  and  follow  down- 
wards, as  it  grows  continually  in  beauty  and  dignity,  is 
most  often  the  face  of  an  Apollo.  Zeus  is  just  as  much 
the  ideal  of  the  grave,  mature  ruler,  the  divine  counsellor 
and  just  judge,  the  <yspwv  of  the  heavenly  assembly.1 

1  Not,  of  course,  precisely  the  Spartan  yepiav,  member  of  the  jepova-ia, 
who  must  be  sixty  years  of  age.  Zeus  we  might  imagine  from  thirty-five 
to  forty.  He  would  then  be  five  to  ten  years  above  the  lowest  limit  for  the 
Athenian  ftov\-f). 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ZEUS, 


161 


Now  concerning  the  artistic  type  of  the  Zeus  coun- 
tenance, which  became  in  late  historic  days  the  ideal  one 
for  all  Greece,  that,  we  know,  was  stereotyped  by  Pheidias 
in  his  great  statue  of  the  Olympian  Zeus  at  Elis;  and 
we  remember  too  the  story  which  Strabo  l  repeats  of  how, 
when  the  sculptor  stood  in  doubt  as  to  what  were  the 
truest  and  noblest  attitude  in  which  to  portray  the  King 
of  Heaven,  his  thoughts  were  turned  (by  inspiration,  as 
he  deemed)  to  that  passage  in  Homer  wherein  Zeus  is 
described  as  inclining  his  head  in  answer  to  the  prayer  of 
Thetis,  while  Olympus  trembles  at  the  sign—  • 

TIJ,  KOI  Kvaj'fyffiv  £TT'  otypvffi  vevae  Kpoviw. 

t  <$'  upa  ^curat  tTreppwoavro  a»'a»cro£ 
oe  UTT*  aOai'aroio'  p-iyav  ft  c\f\i^£i''/O\u//7roj'.a 


Whether  Pheidias  or  whether  Homer,  even,  knew  it  or 
not,  in  the  picture  of  the  nodding  or  frowning  Zeus, 
making  the  heavens  tremble  at  his  nod,  while  the  hair 
falls  down  over  his  shoulders,  we  have  an  image  of  the 
sky  itself  at  the  moment  of  the  thunder.  The  hair  of  the 
god  is  nothing  else  than  the  clouds  which  rush  together, 
and  as  they  meet  there  comes  the  clap  which  shakes  the 
earth  and  heaven. 

So,  too,  do  the  locks  of  Apollo  bespeak  his  natural 
origin.  These,  which  are  in  the  early  statues  always 
carefully,  and  in  the  latter  ones  abundantly,  arranged, 
are  the  rays  of  the  sun.  For  Apollo  was  in  the  beginning 
a  Sun  God. 

Athene,  again,  or,  as  she  is  always  to  be  distinguished, 
Pallas  Athene,  maid  Athene,3  seems  at  first,  perhaps,  to 
be  no  more  than  the  ideal  of  maidenhood,  the  type  of  the 
womanly  element  in  the  world.-  But  she  too  has  her 
origin  in  external  nature.  She  is,  as  Ruskin  has  named 
her,  the  '  Queen  of  the  Air ; '  and  further  back  in  her 

1  viii.  §  353  ;  see  also  §  396. 

2  11.  i.  528.    Thorr,  too,  the  thunder  god  of  the  North,  used  to  draw  his 
brows  over  his  eyes.     See  Edda  Snorra,  50. 

'  Pallas,  the  same  as  7rcc\Ao|,  a  girl. 


162  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

history  she  was  the  cloud  which  first  arose  from  earth — 
that  is,  from  the  river  mist — and  then  became  absorbed  in 
ether. 

It  is,  indeed,  to  be  expected  that  those  divinities, 
whose  influence  was  the  deepest  upon  the  religion  of 
historic  Greece,  should  be  likewise  those  who  bore  about 
them  the  strongest  aroma  of  their  earlier  condition  as 
nature  gods. 

The  truest  nature  gods  must  needs  be  those  whose 
influence  has  been  the  most  lasting ;  for  the  very  reason 
which  has  been  dwelt  upon  so  often,  that  their  actions 
are  real,  those  of  the  other  gods  are  only  invented,  and 
therefore  fanciful.  Zeus  and  Apollo  bear  in  their  human 
features  traces  of  the  substance  out  of  which  they  were 
formed.  If  Athene  does  not  so  clearly  display  hers,  it  is 
perhaps  because  she  belongs  to  that  creation  of  misty 
beings  rightly  called  by  the  Indians  the  apsaras  or  form- 
less, who  rise  out  of  the  rivers  or  from  the  sea.  She  is  a 
more  ideal  being,  less  substantial  than  her  father  and  her 
brother ;  yet  she  too  is  a  growth  from  sensible  nature. 

The  chief  thing  which  we  have  to  discover,  in  order  to 
determine  the  character  of  a  creed,  is  in  what  part  of 
nature  its  deities  take  their  being :  are  they  gods  of  the 
earth,  or  of  the  sea,  or  of  the  air  ?  Not  only  Zeus,  Athene, 
Apollo,  but  almost  all  the  gods  of  the  Greek  pantheon 
were  supposed  to  reign  in  heaven.  Hades  only  had  his 
kingdom  beneath  the  earth,  and  Poseidon  his  in  the 
sea.  The  Olympians,  however,  had  not  all  their  origin  in 
celestial  phenomena ;  and  so,  when  we  find  a  god  or 
goddess  whose  proper  sphere  is  the  earth  exalted  to 
heaven,  we  may  be  sure  that  this  change  took  place 
through  the  influence  of  the  celestial  divinities.  To  the 
nature  of  the  celestials,  therefore,  this  earth  god  must  con- 
form ;  he  will  lose  his  own  individuality,  and  put  on 
theirs.  For  it  will  no  longer  do  to  say,  as  mythologists 
once  said,  that  man  has  always  looked  up  to  heaven,  and 
made  the  heaven  the  home  of  his  gods.  Man  of  the 


MIGRATIONS  OF  THE   GREEKS. 


163 


prime  looked  down  to  earth  and  found  his  gods  on  earth, 
in  rock,  and  tree,  and  stream  ;  nor  did  he  soon  forget 
these  his  first  divinities.  Wherefore  it  becomes  a  matter 
of  highest  importance,  in  testing  the  nature  of  man's 
belief,  to  find  out  how  far  his  Olympus  is  really  celestial, 
and  how  much  of  earthiness  there  is  mingled  with  the 
conception  of  his  heavenly  gods. 

The  main  influence,  it  has  been  already  said,  which 
must  have  shaken  the  Aryans  loose  from  the  chains  of 
fetichisni  was  the  first  migration  from  their  cradle  land. 
It  has  been  already  noticed  how,  before  there  arose  a 
complete  separation  of  the  various  nationalities — Indians, 
Persians,  Greeks,  Romans,  Teutons,  Celts,  and  Slavs — 
our  forefathers  were  first  divided  into  two  bodies ;  one  of 
these  comprised  the  ancestors  of  the  Indians  and  Persians, 
while  the  second  was  the  aggregate  of  those  tribes  which 
afterwards  composed  the  nations  of  Europe.  So  that  the 
word  Indo-European  will  express  pretty  accurately  these 
nationalities  as  they  were  known  to  history,  if  'Euro- 
pean* stand  for  the  races  who  were  in  time  to  people 
Europe,  and  '  Indian  '  be  expanded  to  mean  Indo-Persic 
— that  is  to  say,  the  peoples  who  in  the  end  migrated  to 
India  and  to  Iran.  That  the  separation  of  the  two 
groups,  the  Indo-Persians  on  the  one  side  and  the  Euro- 
pean group  upon  the  other,  had  preceded  any  more 
minute  separation  of  nationalities,  is  proved  by  the  early 
use  of  distinguishing  names  for  these  two  great  divisions. 
The  ancestors  of  the  Indo-Persians  claimed  for  them- 
selves alone  the  old  title  Aryas,  and  they  gave  to  the 
other  body  the  name  of  Yavanas,  or  young  ones,  or  other- 
wise the  *  fighting '  members  of  the  community.1  From 
this  root  we  get  the  Javan  of  Scripture,  the  Greek  Ion, 
lonis,  Ionian. 

The  people  who  at  last  migrated  westward  must  have 

1  Juvenis  and  juvare,  both  from  the  Skr.  root  yu,  to  ward  off,  whence 
Skr.  yuvan,  juvenis,  young.  In  the  Edicts  of  Asoka,  33rd  cent.  B.C.,  we  have 
the  word  Yona  (Ed.  Princep.  ii.  4)  =  Gr.  Ia/oves,  laovfs,  Iwves. 

M  2 


164  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

had  their  settlements  on  the  western  side  of  the  old  home; 
and  as  those  of  the  Aryas  were  backed  against  the  Beloor 
Tagh  and  the  Hindoo  Koosh,  the  Yavanas  would  stand  as 
a  belt  between  this  highland  country  and  the  plain  or  the 
sea  in  front  of  it.  They  would  be  the  first  to  encounter 
any  strange  tribe  whose  wanderings  brought  them  to  the 
land  of  the  Aryas,  and  to  this  fact  no  doubt  they  owed 
their  name  of  Yavanas. 

After  this  followed  the  dark  period  of  the  migrations. 
The  Yavanas  in  their  turn  split  up  into  two  divisions. 
Three  of  the  races,  the  Celts  (probably),  the  Teutons,  and 
the  Slavonians,  passed  in  succession  north  of  the  Caspian 
Sea  and  so  into  Europe.  The  remaining  portion,  from 
which  were  to  spring  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  travelled 
southward  till  they  settled  in  the  table-land  of  Asia 
Minor,  where  it  is  likely  they  remained  for  some  time. 
It  was  in  this  central  district,  Phrygia,  that  in  later  his- 
torical ages  there  ^vas  to  be  found  a  people  allied  to  the 
Hellenes  by  language l  and  by  many  religious  rites.2 
Some  never  left  this  seat,  and,  after  they  had  mingled 
with  the  indigenous  people  of  the  land,  left  behind  them, 
in  Phrygia,  a  race  half  Greek  in  character,  and  with  cus- 
toms and  beliefs  which  down  to  late  times  could  assert 
a  claim  of  kinship  to  the  Hellenic.  Another  division 
travelled  to  Europe  by  the  Hellespont,  and  from  this 
section  descended  the  main  body  of  the  nations  inhabiting 
the  two  eastern  peninsulas  of  Europe.  A  third  made  its 
way  to  the  sea  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  in  that  region, 
favourable  for  all  development  in  arts  and  social  life,  they 
advanced  rapidly  in  culture  and  far  surpassed  their 
brethren  of  European  Greece. 

Of  the  above  divisions  of  race,  the  Phrygian  people 
we  may  put  out  of  all  account.  The  Greek  nation  was 


1  The  Phrygian  tongue  is  apparently  more  closely  allied  to  the  Hellenic 
than  is  the  Gothic  to  the  Middle  High  German  (Curtius,  Griecli.  GescJi.) 

2  Especially  in  the  worship  of  the  ancient  earth  goddess,   Rhea  or 
Cybele.     See  next  chapter. 


THE  IONIANS.  165 

made  up  of  two  sections — those  who  went  round  by  the 
Hellespont  and  those  who  came  down  to  the  coast  of  Asia 
Minor.  It  was  these  last  who  were  known  to  the  Semitic 
nationalities,  certainly  to  the  Phoanicians,  perhaps  to  the 
Canaanites  and  Israelites;  it  was  these  who  were  designated 
by  the  name  Javan.  The  word  Javan  we  may  translate  into 
Ionian.  Wherefore,  in  calling  these  Asiatic  Greeks  (as  a 
body)  lonians,  I  would  not  be  thought  to  make  a  nicer 
distinction  than  their  neighbours  the  Phoenicians  made. 
It  is  true  that  the  word  was  not  understood  in  so  wide 
a  significance  by  the  Greeks  themselves,  at  least  not  by 
those  of  historic  times.  In  these  historic  days  we  find 
the  Asiatic  coast  divided  among  three  Greek  nationalities, 
only  one  of  whom  retained  the  ancient  name  of  lonians. 
The  others  called  themselves  Dorians  and  ^Eolians,  and 
all  three,  even  the  lonians,  imagined  themselves  to  have 
been  planted  there  not  by  migrations  from  anterior  Asia, 
but  by  colonisation  from  the  opposite  coast  of  European 
Greece.  The  Dorians  had  been  planted  in  this  way. 
Many  even  of  the  lonians  may  have  been  brought,  by  a 
backward  wave  of  migration,  from  the  West  to  the  East. 
But  the  name  of  the  lonians  was  far  anterior  to  these 
recorded  migrations :  so,  too,  was  the,  first  settlement  of 
Greeks  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor. 

The  Yavanas,  or  lonians  of  Asia  Minor,  mingled  with 
the  Oriental  nations  whom  they  found  there,  some  of 
whom  had  attained  no  small  degree  of  civilisation.  And 
the  lonians  doubtless  acquired  many  of  their  arts.  Espe- 
cially from  the  Phoenicians,  the  seafarers  of  those  days, 
do  they  seem  to  have  learnt  the  art  of  navigation,  which 
was  known  only  in  an  elementary  form  to  the  older 
Aryans.  There  are,  common  to  the  Indo-European  family 
of  languages,  words  for  oar  and  rudder,  but  none  for  sail ; 
and  we  may  conclude  from  this  that  sea  voyages  were 
unattempted  by  the  Aryas  of  the  prime,  or  by  the 
Yavanas  when  they  formed  one  nation.  Those  of  the 
Grseco-Italicans  who  crossed  the  Hellespont  could  well 


166  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

have  accomplished  that  feat  with  only  such  boats  as  had 
plied  upon  broad  rivers.  But  the  Greeks  of  the  Asiatic 
coast  soon  learned  a  higher  art  of  navigation.  Presently 
a  great  part  of  the  people  passed  on,  and  settled  upon 
the  countless  islands  of  the  ^Egsean  and  upon  the  eastern 
coast  of  European  Greece.  One  of  the  Greek  words  for 
sea  is  quite  peculiar  to  that  language — not  shared,  I 
mean,  by  other  Indo-European  ones — and  is  likewise  pecu- 
liarly significant.  It  is  TTOI/TOS,  which  means  literally 
a  path.1  Can  we  doubt  that  the  habit  of  looking  upon 
the  sea  as  a  'path,'  a  way,  was  first  opened  to  the  minds 
of  the  Greeks  when  they  from  their  Phoenician  neighbours 
had  learned  to  make  the  water  their  road  to  new  lands  ? 

In  the  formation  of  the  Greek  nation,  then,  there  were 
two  elements.  The  earlier  and  ruder  people,  who 
travelled  by  the  Hellespont,  were  the  first  to  set  foot 
on  the  mainland  of  Europe;  the  other  body  came  by 
immigration  from  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  brought 
some  civilisation  with  them,  and  all  the  elements  of  a 
higher  life. 

Of  course  this  was  not  accomplished  in  a  day :  the 
passage  into  Greece  of  the  men  from  the  Asiatic  coast 
must  have  been  especially  slow,  for  they  had  nothing  to 
tempt  them  to  leave  the  rich  land  in  which  they  were. 
The  settlers  on  the  other  side  of  the  JEgsean  could  have 
been  no  more  than  the  overflow  of  their  population. 
Each  successive  wave  which  came  overlapping  the  pre- 
vious one  was  more  deeply  imbued  with  tne  nascent 

1  Connected  with  the  Skr.  pantha,  patha  and  our  path.  It  may  be  that 
there  is  a  Teutonic  name  for  sea  from  the  same  root,  viz.  the  A.S.  fait  hi 
(Pictet,  o.  c.  i.  113).  No  nautical  terms  were  originally  common  to  the 
Greek  and  Italian  languages,  save  those  that  are  also  common  to  the  Indo- 
European  family.  This  shows  that  the  Greeks  discovered  the  art  of  sea 
navigation  after  they  had  been  separated  from  the  Italian  stock. 

In  reference  to  the  effect  of  movement  upon  the  development  of  belief, 
the  decay  of  fetichism,  &c.,it  is  worth  noticing  that  the  very  active  nature 
of  the  whole  Greek  race  is  exemplified  by  the  number  of  verbal  roots  in  the 
Greek  language. 

The  Latin  pontus  is,  I  believe,  borrowed  direct  from  it6vros.  Pons  is 
related  to  pantJia. 


THE  PELASGIANS. 


167 


civilisation  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  more  nearly  Hellenic  in 
character  as  compared  with  the  character  of  those  who  had 
wandered  far  round  by  the  Hellespont.  These  last  formed 
the  Pelasgic  element l  in  Greek  society. 

The  migrators  from  the  Asiatic  coast  found  people 
of  more  or  less  Semitic  extraction  settled  in  many  of  the 
islands,  and  in  those  parts  of  the  eastern  shore  of  European 
Greece  which  they  first  occupied.  It  is  hardly  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  other  travellers  (whom,  we  have  called 
Pelasgians),  after  they  had  gone  round  by  the  Hellespont, 
found  the  lands  into  which  they  debouched  quite  bare  of 
inhabitants.  But  of  these  earlier  people  we  know  little  or 
nothing.  They  were  probably  a  peaceful  pastoral  race. 
Their  very  existence  had  been  forgotten  by  the  men  who 
ousted  them  from  their  homes ;  for,  in  historic  days,  the 
Greeks  of  Europe  generally  looked  upon  themselves  as 
autochthones — that  is  to  say,  sprung  from  the  earth  on 
which  they  dwelt. 

The  later  travellers  from  Asia,  who  had  grown  to  a 
more  complete  self-consciousness  and  to  a  stronger  sense 
of  nationality  than  their  Pelasgic  brethren  could  feel, 
came  later  than  the  others  had  done  to  the  European 
coast.  When  they  did  come,  they  found  in  European 
Greece  a  race  somewhat  like  to  themselves  in  language 
and  character,  but  much  ruder  in  manners,  with  no 
memory  of  the  time  when  they  all  together  left  their 
Aryan  home,  but,  on  the  contrary,  deeming  themselves 
children  of  the  soil  and  firmly  settled  there.  These  people 
had  developed  a  certain  civilisation,  marked  by  solid 
stone  architecture — unless  this  were,  as  I  rather  sup- 
pose, the  work  of  a  still  earlier  race,  and  only  adopted 
by  the  Greeks — and  they  had  some  cities.  The  name, 
Pelasgians,  which  they  received  from  the  new  comers 


1  Pelasgic,  according  to  a  recent  derivation,  which  seems  to  me  sound, 
is  from  the  root  of  the  Skr.  parasja  (paras  far  ja  go),  and  means  not,  as 
was  by  the  Greeks  supposed,  'the  old,'  but  '  the  far  wanderers.'  See  paper 
by  K.  Pischl,  Zcitschri.fi  fur  vcrglcichende  SprachforscJiung,  vol.  xx. 


168  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

from  Asia,  whatever  its  original  meaning,  came  in  time 
to  distinguish  the  older  and  ruder  civilisation,  which  had 
first  appeared  in  Greece,  from  the  newer  or  truly  Hellenic 
civilisation,  which  came  from  Asia.  The  Hellenic  culture 
superseded  the  Pelasgic  culture  ;  and,  but  to  a  less  extent, 
Hellenic  belief  superseded  Pelasgic  belief. 

It  is  needful  to  take  into  account  these  details  of  the 
prehistoric  existence  of  the  Greek  people,  so  far  as  they 
can  be  reasonably  conjectured ;  because  the  character  of 
their  existence,  and  the  scenes  among  which  that  life  has 
been  passed,  must  go  far  to  determine  the  people's  future 
creed.  When  the  proto-Greeks  entered  upon  their  life  of 
change  and  migration  they  were  still  in  the  main  a  nation 
of  shepherds.  They  had  lived  in  a  land  of  hill  and  valley 
and  rushing  mountain  stream,  and  after  their  wanderings 
had  begun  their  lot  still  lay  amid  scenes  not  dissimilar. 
They  travelled  first  to  the  hilly  Caucasus,  and  thence  to 
the  central  table-land  of  Asia  Minor,  a  region  compounded 
of  barren  heights  and  more  fruitful  lower  lands ;  and 
thence  they  passed  (many  of  them)  into  Thrace  and 
Macedon  and  Epirus.  Here,  even  in  the  cultured  and 
historic  ages  of  Greece,  the  inhabitants  remained  amid 
wild  scenes  a  rude  bucolic  race.  Those  who  settled  on 
the  western  coasts  of  Greece  proper,  though  now  in 
sunnier  regions,  were,  in  days  near  to  historic  times,  con- 
fined to  the  most  barren  and  stormiest  parts  of  them ;  for 
the  mild  eastern  coasts  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
Ionian  peoples.1 

The  western  people  it  was  who  first  gained  from  their 
Italian  neighbours  the  name  of  Graeci  (TpaiKot),12  which 

1  The  character  of   Macedon  and  Thrace — the  region  beyond  Mount 
Olympus  —is  admirably  described  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  book  of 
Curtius'   GriecMsche   GescMclite,      The   distinction  which  I  have   drawn 
between  the  two  orders  of  civilisation,  the  Pelasgic  and  the  Ionian  (or 
Hellenic),  is  geographically  between  the  kingdom  of  the  JSgasan,  which 
included  the  islands  and  both  coasts  of  that  sea,  and  the  regions  to  the 
north  and  west. 

2  Connected  with  the  Gaelic  word  crwach,  a  hill.     This  name  forms  a 


OLDEST   GREEK  DIVINITIES.  169 

means  the  dwellers  on  the  heights.  Homer's  description 
of  Ithaca  might  serve  for  all  this  part  of  Greece.  It  was 
'rough,  not  fit  for  use  of  horses,  yet  not  too  btirren.' 
Now,  as  the  older  Greeks  were  by  degrees  pushed  back- 
wards and  backwards  from  the  south  and  east  by  the 
more  enterprising  lonians,  and  as  the  lonians  must  in 
historic,  or  nearly  historic,  times  have  departed  much 
more  than  the  old  Greek  people  had  done  from  their 
primitive  faith,  it  is  in  the  north  and  west  of  Greece  that 
we  must  look  for  the  traces  of  the  earliest  creed  of  the 
Greek  race. 

During  their  days  of  wandering  the  gods  of  the  Greeks 
were  doubtless  chiefly  those  heavenly  bodies  who  travelled 
with  them  as  they  travelled,  and  some  elemental  substances 
— one  of  the  chief  among  these  fire — which  they  had  learned 
to  worship  while  they  were  in  Bactriana  ;  their  fetich- 
worshipping  instincts  remaining,  from  necessity  of  travel,1 
in  a  sort  of  abeyance,  until  in  a  new  settlement  fresh 
objects  of  reverence  should  be  found  to  take  the  place 
of  the  others.  The  protecting  Heaven,  and  next  to  the 
Heaven  the  Sun,  who  shed  his  brightness  on  their  path, 
and  when  he  rose  in  the  morning  ran  before  them  on 
the  road  they  were  to  take,  were  their  ever-present  gods. 
The  first  of  these  we  know  they  worshipped,  him  whom, 
under  the  name  of  Dyaus,  they  had  known  in  their 
cradle  home.  This  Dyaus-Zeus  remained  the  chief  god 
of  all. 

One  may  fancy  that  the  Germans  and  the  Slavs,  during 
their  migratory  period,  underwent  an  actual  degeneracy 

natural  contrast  to"E\\r)vfs,  the  inhabitants  of  low-lying  and  marshy  lands  ; 
just  as  the  old  Greeks  of  Greece  proper  form  a  contrast  to  the  lonians,  who 
imparted  their  civilisation  to  the  Hellenes  of  later  date.  For  when  the 
marsh  is  drained  it  becomes  fruitful,  like  the  rich  Argos. 

Compare  the  description  of  Ithaca,  given  above,  or  of  '  black  Epirus ' 

(Od.  xiv.  97),  with  the  description  of  hollow  Lacedaemon,  'where,  in  the 

wide  plain,  is  wealth  of  lotus  and  cypress  and  rye,  and  broad  fields  of 

wheat'  (Od.  iv.   601-608  ;   of.  also  Od.  xiii.  414,   '  Lacedasmon  of   broad 

.lands'). 

1  See  Chapters  II.  and  III. 


170  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

in  culture.  Their  condition,  when  they  first  emerge  into 
the  light  of  history,  seems  more  barbarous,  nearer  to  the 
condition  of  a  nomadic  and  hunting  people,  than  the 
state  of  their  Aryan  forefathers  in  their  settled  home. 
Whether,  in  their  time  of  want  and  difficulty  and  struggle, 
the  Greeks  likewise  passed  through  a  period  of  degeneracy 
we  cannot  be  sure.  They  could  not,  at  any  rate,  have 
advanced  much  during  their  wanderings,  for  they  were 
still  a  savage  people  when  they  obtained  a  lasting  settle- 
ment in  Greece.  Their  gods,  too,  were  doubtless  of  a 
rude  and  savage  kind.  Dyaus  underwent  the  same  change 
of  character  which,  in  the  last  chapter,  we  followed 
out  in  the  growth  of  Indra  worship,  when  we  saw  the 
heaven  god  giving  place  to  a  more  human  and  active  god 
of  storms.  We  see  that  this  happened  by  noting  what 
character  belongs  to  Zeus  and  Jupiter,  when  they  appear 
in  the  creeds  of  Greece  and  Rome.  The  nature  in  which 
Zeus  and  Jupiter  most  agree  must  have  been  the  character 
of  the  Dyaus-Zeus  of  the  proto-Greeks  and  proto-Komans. 
These  gods  are  essentially  the  pictures  of  the  stormy  sky. 
They  are  both  alike  the  wielders  of  the  thunderbolt,  and 
guardians  of  the  wind  and  rain.  Even  in  Homer  the  Ionian 
Zeus,  though  he  has  grown  to  be  much  more  than  merely 
this,  is  essentially  a  storm  god.  We  have  seen  how  the 
very  imagery  which  described  his  nod  was  drawn  from  the 
natural  imagery  of  the  cloudy  sky ;  and  it  is  needless  to 
recall  all  the  passages  wherein  Zeus  shows  in  this  cha- 
racter. The  Greeks,  for  all  the  beauty  of  their  sky  and 
air,  had  many  opportunities  for  watching  the  phenomena 
of  storms  ;  for  their  land  is  varied  in  its  character,  subject 
to  sudden  atmospheric  changes,  nursed  upon  the  bosoms 
of  the  two  seas  upon  which  it  looks.  Nor,  I  think,  is 
anything  more  noticeable  in  Homer  than  the  number  and 
the  beauty  of  the  similes  which  he  has  gathered  from  such 
watching. 

Over  all  such  doings  in  the  air  Zeus  has  as  close  and 
special  a  control  as  Poseidon  over  the  waves.     Zeus  is  not 


ZEUS,  THE  STORM  GOD.  171 

the  thunderer  alone,  he  is  the  cloud-collector ; l  he  alike 
sends  the  rain  and  the  snow,  the  prospering  wind  to 
sailors  or  the  blast  which  hurries  the  drifting  scud  across 
the  face  of  the  sea ;  he  sends  a  storm  from  land,  such  as 
that  which  came  from  Ida  to  confound  the  Greeks ; 2  like 
Jehovah,  he  places  his  bow  in  the  cloud  a  sign  to  man,  or 
makes  the  cloud  stand  steadfast  and  calm  upon  the  moun- 
tain-top, while  the  might  of  Boreas  sleeps. 

Ol  £c  Kat  avrol 

Ovre  /3mc  Tpwtav  vTreltiSiffav,  ovre  (WMie* 
'AXX'  eftefOff  vHftiKriaiv  loutoref,  fie  rt  KpoWwv 

IVTrjfftV  tV   UKpOTToXoifflV   OptfffflV 

e  Bopeao,  teal 


This  is  the  god  as  he  was  known  on  the  eastern  shore 
of  the  .jEgsean.  In  the  special  home  of  the  old  Greek  race 
the  land  was  far  more  wild  and  storm-bound,  and  there  the 
special  god  of  that  race,  the  Pelasgic  Zeus,  assumed  a  still 
gloomier  aspect.  Here  it  was  that  the  wind,  driving  in 
from  the  Mediterranean,  rolled  up  great  masses  of  cloud 
which  broke  upon  the  high  inland  ridges,  such  as  Ithome 
and  Lykseon,4  so  that  these  mountains,  visible  cloud- 
collectors  as  they  were,  became  the  very  embodiments  of 
the  god.  It  is  in  these  regions  that  we  find  the  deepest 
traces  of  the  worship  of  the  Pelasgic  Zeus,  the  god  of 
rugged  mountains  and  of  gloomy  forests.  On  coins  of 


consider    the   force   of    such  an    address  as    /cv5i<rre 
,  /c€\aivf<^)fs,  aidtpi  vaiw. 

2  II.  vii.  4  ;  xii.  252  ;  xi.  27  ;  xii.  279,  where  Zeus  sends  the  snow. 

3  11.  v.  520-5. 

*  The  epithet  of  Zeus,  Zevs  \VKCUOS  (Paus.  i.  38,  5  ;  viii.  2  ;  1  Callim.  //". 
in  Jov.  4),  is  probably  a  reminiscence  of  the  ancient  meaning  of  his  name, 
dijaux,  the  shining.  The  title  is  also  applied  to  Apollo.  Nevertheless 
there  is  evidence  that  Zeus  was  specially  worshipped  on  Mount  Lykaeon. 
May  not,  then,  the  name  of  this  mountain  have  been  taken  from  the  name 
of  dyaus,  of  which  lykoeus  is  a  simple  translation  1  If  this  be  so,  it  suggests 
an  example  of  a  relapse  into  fetichism.  The  mountain  was  first  masculine, 
6  AVKOIOS  :  later  neuter,  r5  \VKCUOV.  Other  epithets  ^of  Zeus  show  him  to 
have  been  specially  worshipped  on  mountain-  tops,  e'.g.  &Kpios, 


172  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Ithoine  and  of  Megalopolis — this  last  place  was  under  the 
shadow  of  Mount  Lykseon,  the  highest  peak  in  the  Pelo- 
ponnese — we  see  the  Pelasgic  Zeus  seated  upon  a  rock; 
whereby  we  learn  where  his  dwelling  was.  There  is 
a  similar  representation  of  the  Olympian  Zeus  upon  the 
coins  of  Elis ;  and  this  indicates  that  here  even  the  Olym- 
pian Zeus  kept  the  character  of  his  Pelasgian  forerunner. 
The  Zeus  of  Dodona  was  worshipped  in  much  the  same 
fashion  on  Mount  Dicte,  in  Crete.  Zeus,  like  Odhinn,  the 
wind  god  of  the  Teutons,  loved  to  haunt  the  darkest  and 
most  inaccessible  groves.  One  of  these  was  at  Elis ; 
another,  more  awful  still,  at  Dodona.  The  oak,  which 
was  Odhinn's  tree,  was  also  Zeus's.1  The  wind  which 
whispered  through  the  oaks  of  Dodona  brought  the  oracle 
of  the  god.  He  is  commonly  portrayed  with  a  crown  of 
oak  leaves. 

In  all  this  we  see  the  mingling  of  an  older  fetichism 
with  a  new  creed.  The  mountain — Lykseon  or  Ithome — 
preserved  its  former  godhead  when  it  was  worshipped  as 
the  very  Zeus.  It  was  not  only  the  grove  of  Dodona  that 
was  holy,  but  a  certain  evergreen  oak  in  it  was  peculiarly 
so.  This  oak  no  doubt  was  confounded  in  popular  imagi- 
nation with  the  deity. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  either  the  European 
Greeks  or  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  either  the  Pelasgians  or  the 
lonians,  were  uninfluenced  by  the  creeds  with  which  they 
came  in  contact.  If  the  Pelasgians  met  with  men  in 
quite  a  primitive  state  of  fetich  worship,  this  would  tend 
to  stir  in  them  reactionary  leanings  towards  the  primitive 
religion  which  they  had  left  behind  them  in  Bactria,  and 
once  more  local  gods  would  spring  up,  local  mountains  and 
streams  would  be  worshipped;  indeed,  we  have  already 


1  Especially  the  edible  oak  (</>?j7^s).  From  this  Zeus  received  the 
epithet  ^yuvaios,  which  he  sometimes  bore.  See  Zenodotus  apud  iSteph. 
Byzant.,  Frag,  de  Dodona.  Jupiter  had  the  name  Jupiter  fagutalis  (Varro, 
De  Lingua  Lot.  iv.  32,  1),  which  may  have  belonged  to  him  before  the 
fagus  changed  from  an  oak  into  a  beech. 


THE  GODS  AND  THE  TITANS.  173 

seen  such  things  long  continued  to  be  worshipped  in 
Greece.  Gradually,  no  doubt,  there  came  to  be  a  separa- 
tion between  the  creeds  of  the  more  active  and  intelligent, 
those  who  were  truer  to  their  own  nationality  and  to  their 
gods,  and  those  who  sank  down  in  the  social  scale  and 
mixed  with  the  earlier  natives  of  the  land.  The  peasantry, 
who  had  in  their  veins  the  blood  of  this  older  stock,  came 
to  have  a  separate  code  of  belief,  connected  with  the  cult 
of  Pan  and  of  the  Arcadian  Hermes,  and  of  many  a  local 
satyr  and  nymph,  and  this  creed,  if  it  was  not  hostile  to 
the  worship  of  Zeus  and  Apollo  and  the  other  Olympians, 
at  any  rate  passed  it  by  without  much  attention. 

Often  we  find  the  two  religions  existing  side  by  side, 
and  at  peace ;  but  this  peace  could  hardly  have  been 
gained  save  through  previous  war.  In  such  a  case,  when 
the  gods  of  the  new  comers  put  to  flight  the  esta- 
blished fetich  gods  of  the  land  to  which  they  came,  it 
might  seem  to  the  eye  of  history  like  some  great  combat 
between  the  visible  things  of  nature,  the  Titanic  moun- 
tains and  trees,  and  the  subtler,  unhandled,  but  greater 
celestial  powers.  That  memorable  gigantomachia,  or  war 
between  the  gods  and  Titans,  does  in  truth  lie  at  the 
threshold  of  all  advances  in  culture ;  only  by  breaking  up 
the  peaceful,  settled  life  of  the  prime  do  men  begin  to 
advance  in  civilisation.  We  cannot  wonder  if  between 
such  mighty  forces  the  battle  was  grievous ;  so  that,  as 
Hesiod  tells  us,  the  tramp  of  the  contending  armies  shook 
the  earth,  and  echoed  far  below  to  the  depths  of  shadowy 
Tartarus.1 

Seen  by  peasant  eyes,  the  same  combat  and  the  in- 
coming of  Zeus  and  his  army  were  the  inroad  of  .a  fierce 
new  power  into  the  woods  and  valleys  of  the  land.  In 
such  eyes,  the  age  before  Zeus  was  a  golden  time ;  those 
days  were  days  of  peace  and  plenty,  and  the  memory  of 
them  was  cherished  at  rustic  firesides.  The  husbandmen 

1  Tlieog,  664. 


174  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

believed  in  them,  and  called  them  the  Saturnian  age,  the 
age  of  gold,  to  which  had  succeeded  an  age  of  bronze,  i.e. 
of  war ; l  after  which  had  followed  a  still  worse  age,  the  age 
of  iron,  and  of  slavery,  with  its  iron  chains.  It  is  Hesiod, 
who  sympathised  at  heart  with  the  peasant  state,  and 
had  no  love  at  all  for  war  or  adventure,  who  has  given  us 
this  tradition,  a  peasant's  legend  of  the  three  ages  of  the 
world. 

From  whatever  side  we  view  the  contest,  the  result 
was  the  same — Kronos,  who  represented  the  earlier  time,2 
and  with  him  all  the  Titan  brood,  had  to  flee  far  away  to 
the  extreme  borders  of  earth,  where  stands  Atlas,  the 
Titan's  son,  and  keeps  the  gates  of  the  outer  world,  and 
where  Day  and  Night,  treading  upon  each  other's  heels, 
alternate  pass  the  brazen  threshold ;  and  beyond  Sleep  and 
his  brother  Death,  the  sons  of  murky  Night,  have  their 
home ;  there  must  the  giant  race  abide.3  There  sits  la- 
petus,  the  father  of  Atlas  and  of  Prometheus,  and  with 
him  Kronos,  joying  neither  in  the  splendour  of  Helios 
Hyperion  nor  in  the  breath  of  winds,  for  deep  Tartarus 
is  •  all  around.4  Zeus  it  was  who  dispossessed  these  of 
their  rule,  and  who  took  a  dreadful  vengeance  upon  one 
Titan,  only  because  he  had  been  too  much  the  friend 
of  the  human  race.  Apollo  contended  with  the  shep- 
herd Marsyas — type  of  the  Arcadian  life — and  inflicted 
upon  him  a  cruel  punishment.  These  new  comers  are 
the  gods  of  will,  no  longer  the  simpler  divine  things  of 
nature.5 

But  as,  when  an  invading  nation  has  subdued  another, 
the  war  of  extermination  is  arrested  by  marriage,  and  the 

1  Weapons  having  been  made  of  bronze  in  the  epic  age. 

2  Kronos  was  essentially  a  Pelasgic  god,  as  the  form  of  his  name,  Kronos 
for  Chronos,  shows.     Pelasgic  words  take  K  for  x>  e.g.  Kp-rjffr&s  for  xpriards. 
See  Maury,  B^lig.  de  la  Greee,  i.  263.     Maury  likens  Kp6vos  to  •yepcait.     It  is 
possible  the  name  may  have  been  a  name  for  Dyaus  (or  Ouranos),  and  not 
have  arisen  in  the  way  Welcker  supposes  (see  p.  119,  note).     In  either  case 
we  may  take  the  actual  form  of  this  divinity  to  have  sprung  up  in  Pelasgic 
days. 

3  Hesiod.  *  Iliad.  *  See  p.  96. 


THE  WIVES  OF  ZEUS.  175 

wives  of  the  conquerors,  taken  from  out  of  the  inferior 
race,  preserve  its  blood  ;  so  I  suppose  that  there  was  some 
compromise  effected  between  the  new  deities  and  the  old, 
and  that  the  compact  was  solemnised  by  the  marriage  of 
the  god  of  heaven  to  the  goddess  of  earth.  The  earth 
goddess,  though  her  worship  is  allied  to  fetichism,  is  of  a 
nature  far  more  abstract  than  any  mere  fetich.  In  every 
creed  she  stands  as  the  natural  counterpart  and  partner 
of  the  heaven,  representing  the  principle  of  production, 
as  he  does  that  of  generation.  Thus  in  the  New  Zealand 
tale  of  Tanemahuta,  which  was  referred  to  in  the  second 
chapter,  the  great  productive  principles  were  called  Kangi 
and  Papa,  the  Earth  and  Heaven.  The  closeness  of  their 
embrace  threatened  to  destroy  all  the  children  whom  Papa 
had  brought  forth.  In  the  Vedas  by  the  side  of  Dyaus 
sits  Prithivi,  the  Earth. 

Each  of  the  wives  of  Zeus,  therefore,  I  imagine  to  have 
been  at  one  time  or  another  the  goddess  of  the  earth. 
These  wives  are  many. 

Zsv<a  de  QeaJy  pa.6i\.£v<->  Ttpoorrjv  aTioxov  Qe'ro  Mrjriv. 

dsvTEpov  Tfydyero  \ntapi)v  Qefj.iv  ..... 

rpelS  Si  oi  Evpvyojur/  xdpiroA  TKKE 

Avrdp  6  drjuETpoS  TiotLvcpopfirfi  1$ 

Ipd66o.ro 

o  S7  'AxoXXoova.  nai  "Apreuiv 
ap7  alyioxmo  Aio^  q)iXo 


To  Hesiod  many  of  the  persons  here  enumerated  were 
embodiments  of  qualities  —  that  is  to  say,  of  abstractions 
merely.  Metis  was  Thought,  Themis  was  Law.  Almost 
all  of  them,  however,  were  originally  personifications  of 
some  part  of  nature,  and  the  greatest  number  were  earth 
goddesses.  Thernis  was  so,  for  she  was  a  Boeotian  earth 
goddess.2  Eurynome  is  a  counterpart  of  the  'wide'  Pri- 
thivi. Demeter  (yn-^rijp)  is  another  representative  of 
Prithivi-matar,  mother  Prithivi,  mother  earth.  She, 

1  Hesiod,  Theog.  886  sqq.  *  Maury,  I.  c.  i.  81. 


176  OUTLINES  OF  PKB1ITIVE  BELIEF. 

perhaps,  inherited  most  of  the  character  of  the  old  Aryan 
goddess.  Hera,  too,  was  once  the  earth. 

Not  only  the  wives  but  the  mother  of  Zeus  also  was  an 
embodiment  of  the  earth.  She  was  Khea,  the  wife  of 
Kronos.  As  Kronos  was,  we  have  seen,  probably  only  an 
older  form  of  Zeus,  a  middle  term  between  the  Zeus  whom 
we  know  and  the  Dyaus  who  was  worshipped  by  the 
Aryas,  so  Rhea  may  be  an  older  form  of  Hera.  Khea  was 
originally  goddess  of  the  Phrygians,1  and  the  Phrygians 
represent  the  earliest  form  of  that  nationality  which  gave 
birth  in  time  to  the  Hellenic  race.  As  the  Phrygians 
gave  birth  to  the  Greeks,  so  did  Rhea  to  Hera.  The 
former  of  these  two  names  is  unquestionably  connected 
with  the  Sanskrit  root  ira,  earth,  which  in  Irish  becomes 
ire,  whence  Erin,  Ireland.2 

Concerning  the  worship  of  the  earth  goddess  it  is  not 
my  cue  to  speak  in  this  place ;  for  of  this  we  shall  have 
something  to  say  in  the  following  chapter.  All  that  we 
need  do  here  is  to  take  account  of  this  form  of  worship, 
as  constituting  an  integral  part  of  the  religion  of  the 
early  Greeks. 

But  Hera,  whatever  her  origin,  was  in  many  ways 
different  in  character  from  the  other  wives  of  Zeus.  And 
that  she  was  different  shows  that  in  her  person  the  wor- 
ship of  the  earth,  goddess  had  undergone  a  change.  It  is 
one  of  the  signs  of  the  change  and  the  advance  of  a  creed 
when  the  celestial  divinities  come  to  displace  the  terrestrial 
ones,  or  else  to  effect  a  change  in  the  natures  of  the  latter. 
In  this  instance  the  heaven  god  has  absorbed  the  individu- 
ality of  his  consort,  and  has  given  her  instead  of  her  old 
character  a  nature  modelled  upon  his  own.  It  is  simply 
as  the  Queen  of  Heaven  that  Hera  appears  in  the  Iliad. 

1  Such  at  least  is   the  opinion  of  Maury.      From  Phrygia  Rhea  was 
brought  to  Crete,  where  in  the  historical  clays  she  is  first  met  with. 

2  One   etymology   proposed   for   Hera   is    'lady,'  connected   with   the 
Latin  herns,  the  German  Herr.     See  Maury,  I.  c.     Welcker  (6fr.  Gotterleh. 
i.  302)  adopts  that  from  l^a,  earth,  the  Sanskr.  ira.     Herodotus  tells  us 
that  Hera  was  a  Pelasgic  goddess  (ii.  50). 


POSEID6N  AND  HAIX&S  PLUT6N.  177 

In  Norse  mythology  we  have  just  another  such  example  of 
the  development  of  an  earth  goddess  into  the  simple  femi- 
nine of  the  supreme  god.  Frigg,  the  partner  of  Odhinn, 
and  Freyja,  the  goddess  of  the  earth,  were  originally  one 
person  j1  but  their  individualities  became  separated  in 
order  that  they  might  fulfil  the  requirements  of  a  double 
nature.  One,  as  the  wife  of  Odhinn,  was  the  counterpart 
of  the  heaven  god ;  the  other  was  not  divorced  from  the 
functions  which  belonged  to  her  own  being.  Hera,  then, 
changed  her  character  from  what  it  was  in  Pelasgic  days  ; 
but  still  we  must  reckon  Hera  as  one  of  the  divinities  be- 
longing to  that  early  time.  There  is  a  Pelasgic  Hera  as 
well  as  a  Pelasgic  Zeus. 

Another  god  whose  worship  is  also  as  antique, 
according  to  my  theory,  as  that  of  Zeus,  or  Demeter,  or 
Hera,  is  Poseidon.2  Poseidon  I  suppose  to  have  been  the 
first  sea  god  of  the  Greek  nationality.  The  people  could 
not  have  arrived  at  the  borders  of  Asia,  they  could  not 
have  crossed  the  Hellespont,  nor  have  settled  in  their  new 
homes  in  European  Greece,  without  learning  to  worship 
the  dark  waste  of  water  which  hemmed  them  in  on  every 
side.  Poseidon  was  the  first  embodiment  of  this  pheno- 
menon ;  he  it  was  whom  the  first  mariners  made  their 
patron  god.  But  afterwards  Athene — in  a  way  which  we 
shall  presently  trace  out — became  the  goddess  of  sailors, 
and  the  newer  generation  of  navigators  worshipped  her 
and  neglected  Poseidon.  Hence  the  rivalry  between  the 
two.  Odysseus  is  the  type  of  the  newer  generation,  and 
Odysseus  is  persecuted  by  Poseidon  and  saved  by  Athene.3 

There  is  in  most  creeds  a  god  of  earth  as  well  as  a 
goddess,  with  a  certain  difference  between  them.  The  god 

1  The  name  Fri-gg  is  not  improbably  connected  etymologically  with 
Prithiri  (Grimm,  D.  M.  i.  303). 

*  Kuhn  believes  Poseidon  to  have  been  originally  a  god  of  heaven,  and 
to  have  undergone  the  same  change  which  passed  over  the  Vedic  Varrwa 
(see  Zeitsch.  fur  vcrg.  Sp.  i.  455,  £c.)  This  question  does  not  concern  the 
character  of  Poseidon  as  the  god  of  the  Greeks. 

3  See  below. 

N 


178  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  earth  represents  the  active  powers  of  generation,  the 
goddess  the  passive.  The  former  is  the  god  of  the  seed 
or  of  the  power  of  the  seed  in  the  ground  rather  than  the 
mere  receptive  power  of  earth.  The  receptive  power  of 
earth  such  deities  as  Prithivi  or  Demeter  represented.  The 
earth  god  of  the  Greeks  was  the  god  of  the  hidden  trea- 
sures of  generation  and  of  growth  (Plouton).  Plouton 
came  to  be  confounded  with  Hade's  ;  but  I  doubt  whether 
Hades  or  Aidoneus  are  the  proper  names  of  this  Pelasgic 
god.  Rather  I  should  suppose  him  to  be  represented  by 
Zeus  Chthonius,  earth  Zeus ;  a  title  equivalent  to  earth 
god.1  Hades  was  originally  only  the  personification  of 
the  tomb ;  afterwards,  however,  he  entered  into  the  in- 
heritance of  the  forgotten  earth  god  and  became  Hades 
Pluton.  Another  part  of  the  belongings  of  this  earth  god 
were  given  over  to  one  of  a  younger  generation,  to 
Dionysus. 

It  would  seem,  then — and  this  is  quite  natural — that 
the  Pelasgic  gods  for  the  most  part  belong  to  the  elder  gene- 
ration of  the  Olympians.  They  are  Zeus,  and  Demeter, 
and  Hera,  and  Poseidon,  and  Hades.  In  addition  to  these 
it  is  impossible  to  believe  but  that  the  older  Greeks  had 
their  sun  god.  The  sun  is  too  important  a  being  to  be 
left  out  of  any  system  in  which  the  celestial  gods  are 
worshipped  at  all.  In  no  system  does  the  sun  appear  as  a 
parent  god,  but  always  in  a  relation  of  son  ship  to  the  sky, 
out  of  which  he  seems  to  spring.  Therefore  the  sun  god 
of  the  earlier  time  must  have  been  one  among  the  younger 
generation  of  the  Olympians.  He  was  not  Apollo,  who 
represents  the  later  culture  of  the  Hellenic  race.  Nor  was 
he  Helios.  We  must  look  out  for  some  one  among  the 
second  generation  of  the  gocls  who  could  have  been  the  sun 
god  of  this  age.  He  must  be  one  who  afterwards  fell  some- 
what into  the  background,  because  he  had  at  last  to  give 
place  to  Apollo.  Two  gods,  I  think,  represent  this  divinity 

1  Zeus   being  in  this  case  a  general,  not  a  proper  name  (fleos).     See 
Ch.  I. 


THE  PELASGIAN  SUN  GODS.  179 

— Ares  and  Heracles.  The  sun  of  western  Greece  was  not 
that  bright  being  who  shone  over  the  .ZEgsean  and  its  islands. 
His  character  was  adapted  to  that  of  the  Pelasgic  Zeus ; 
he  was  the  day  star,  shining  red  in  the  storm  or  battling 
with  the  clouds,  rather  than  the  same  sun  shining  in 
pellucid  air.  The  traces  of  this  first  sun  worship — which 
was  displaced  by  the  cultus  of  Apollo — are  to  be  sought 
first  in  the  person  of  Ares  the  fighter,  %a\Ksos  "Aptjs,  brazen 
Ares,  who  ruled  in  warlike  Macedon  and  Thrace;  next  in 
Heracles  the  labourer,  who  was  the  god  of  the  Pelopon- 
nese  and  of  its  peasants.  There  can  be  no  question  that  in 
prehistoric  times  the  worship  of  the  first  of  these  two  was 
far  more  widely  extended  than  we  should  suppose  from 
reading  Homer  or  the  poets  after  Homer.  Traces  of  Ares 
worship  are  to  be  found  in  the  Zeus  Areios,  who  was 
honoured  at  Elis,  and  in  the  name  of  the  Areiopagus  of 
Athens.1  But  of  course  the  god's  real  home  was  farther 
north.  He  was  the  national  deity  of  the  Thracians  ; 2  his 
sons  led  to  Troy  the  men  of  Aspledon  and  Orchomenus 
in  Boeotia,  and  his  daughter  Harmonia  was  the  wife  of 
Cadmus.3 

The  Ares  who  appears  in  Homer  has  no  longer  a 
foundation  in  the  phenomenal  world.  He  has  become  little 
more  than  an  abstraction,  the  spirit  of  the  battle,  to  be 
placed  by  the  side  of  such  beings  as  Eris,  strife,  Phobos, 
fear,  Deimos,  terror,  and  the  rest. 

The  adventures  of  Heracles  are  precisely  those  most 
commonly  ascribed  to  a  sun  god.  Eead  side  by  side  with 
those  of  the  Teutonic  Thorr4  (Donar),  they  show  how 

1  For  the  chief  traces  of  the  worship  of  Ares  in  historic  days  see  Pau- 
sanias. 

2  Cf.  especially  Herod,  v.  7,  where  we  are  told  that  Thrace  was  the 
principal  seat  of  his  wor:  hip. 

8  See  Welcker.  Gr.  Gotterlehrc,  i.  413-424,  on  Ares  as  a  sun  god.  For 
some  curious  evidences  of  his  worship  in  Macedon  and  Thrace,  furnished 
by  the  coins  of  these  districts,  see  Num.  Ckron.for  1880,  p.  49,  by  Prof.  P. 
Gardner. 

4  I  think  it  is  because  they  have  not  studied  the  Greek  mythology  side 
by  side  with  the  Norse,  that  most  writers  have  spoken  of  Heracles  as  almost 

N  2 


180  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

primitive  must  have  been  the  worship  of  Heracles  and 
the  myths  which  gathered  round  that  worship.  He  per- 
haps differs  little  from  some  god  known  to  the  ancient 
Aryas.  But  when  Apollo  came  and  showed  a  higher  ideal 
of  the  god  of  the  sun,  Heracles'  divinity  suffered  much 
abatement  until  he  sank  at  last  to  be  a  demi-god,  holding 
only  by  sufferance  a  place  on  Olympus. 

These  Pelasgians  were  half-savage  men.  The  gods  of 
tempest  whom  they  honoured — the  Zeus  of  the  stormy 
heights  and  wind-grieved  forests ;  the  black  Demeters, 
fit  images  of  the  unsown  earth ;  Ehea,  worshipped  in  hol- 
low caves  ;  the  red  and  angry  sun  ;  dark-haired  Poseidon, 
the  god  of  tempestuous  seas — these  were  well  fitted  to  their 
needs  of  worship  ;  they  could  never  have  satisfied  the  reli- 
gious wants  of  Hellas.  In  the  person  of  the  Greeks,  it  has 
been  well  said,  humanity  becomes  for  the  first  time  com- 
pletely human ;  before,  it  was  half  bestial,  like  the  satyrs  of 
Arcadia  or  the  centaurs  of  Thrace ;  its  creed  was  unformed 
and  unsightly  like  its  gods,  who  were  still  represented  by 
blocks  of  wood  and  stone.  • 

But,  as  Greece  grew  to  perfect  manhood,  the  gods 
became  softened  in  nature.  The  Pelasgic  Zeus  changed 
into  a  god  of  Olympus,  the  true  image  of  a  king  in 
heaven.  Elis  and  its  groves  opened  to  the  new  sovereign, 
who  took  his  seat  there  unopposed.  None  were  more 
instrumental  in  this  change  than  they  who  introduced 
the  new  sun  god,  Apollo,  in  the  stead  of  Ares  or  Heracles, 
and  a  new  heaven-born  Athene,  who  outshone  the  earth 
goddesses,  Ehea,  or  Demeter,  or  even  Hera  herself.  The 
revolution,  however,  was  a  quiet  one,  like  those  slow 
changes  we  learn  to  think  of  as  creating  new  worlds  or 
new  systems  of  planets.  In  the  nebulous  mass  of  the  old 
Pelasgic  society,  as  yet  without  coherence  or  national 

identical  with  the  Tyrian  Melcarth.  See  Curtius,  Griecli.  Gesoh.,  for  a 
recent  example.  So  far  as  concerns  the  representation  of  Heracles  in  art, 
I  can  well  believe  there  was  an  indebtedness  to  Phoenician  influence  ;  and 
this  extended,  perhaps,  to  some  special  myths,  but  not  to  the  whole  concep- 
tion in  the  popular  mind. 


THE  DOKIAN  APOLLO.  181 

existence,  a  vortex  of  more  eager  life  was  set  up ;  and  this, 
ever  widening,  drew  into  itself  the  best  part  of  the  race, 
until  a  new  Hellas  arose  to  take  the  place  of  Greece. 

As  for  the  processes  whereby  the  Apollo  worship  and 
the  Athene  worship  were  introduced,  at  these  we  can  do 
little  more  than  guess ;  and  yet  concerning  the  first  of 
these  tradition  does  seem  to  afford  us  some  clue ;  and  that 
which  tradition  appears  to  sketch  out  we  may — making 
due  premise  that  the  story  is  not  to  be  taken  for  certain 
fact — present  in  something  of  the  form  of  a  continuous 
narrative. 

The  authors  of  Apollo  worship  as  a  Hellenic  belief 
were,  it  would  seem,  the  Dorians — at  first  a  small  tribe,  not 
worthy  to  be  called  a  nation,  who  lived  in  the  extreme 
north  of  Greece,  where  Mount  Olympus  separates  Macedon 
from  Thessaly.  They  were  Zeus-worshippers ;  by  their  con- 
quests and  settlements  they  carried  the  cult  of  the 
Olympian  Zeus  over  the  whole  land  of  Greece ;  and 
because  they  worshipped  Zeus,  the  old  chief  god  of  the 
Pelasgians  was  never  deposed  from  his  throne.  But  the 
Dorians  were  before  all  things  the  votaries  of  the  sun  god, 
Apollo;  and  with  them  the  religion  of  Apollo  travelled 
wherever  they  went.  The  outbreak  of  these  men  of  the 
north  from  the  bosom  of  the  Pelasgic  world,  was  in  some 
respects  like  the  outbreak  upon  the  Roman  Empire  of 
certain  Teutonic  peoples  from  the  vast  unexplored  forests 
of  Germany,  and  from  the  shores  of  silent  northern 
seas.  Like  the  Scandinavians,  from  being  mountaineers, 
these  men  took  to  the  sea,  and  became  pirates.  They 
haunted  the  islands  of  the  Archipelago,  and  passing 
onward,  sometimes  resting  where  they  came,  sometimes 
defeated  and  forced  to  retire,  they  got  at  last  to  Crete,  and 
founded  the  first  Dorian  kingdom  there. 

The  tradition  of  Minos  points  not  obscurely  to  the 
time  when  Crete  was  the  ruling  state  in  the  Greek  world. 
The  kingdom  of  Minos  extended,  no  doubt,  over  most  of 
the  islands  of  the  JEgsean,  and  over  part  of  its  Asiatic  and 


L82  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

European  shores.  And  Minos  was  a  Dorian,  Crete  a 
Dorian  land.1  At  this  time,  therefore,  it  was  that  the 
great  extension  of  Apollo  worship  probably  took  place, 
whereof  the  deepest  traces  were  in  after  years  discovered 
in  Caria,  in  Lycia,  and  in  the  Troad.  It  is  likely  enough 
that  Apollo  worship  was  not  moulded  into  its  final  shape 
until  such  time  as  the  Dorians  of  Thessaly  had  been  long 
in  contact  with  the  lonians  of  Asia,  and  that  it  passed 
through  many  lower  forms  before  it  reached  the  condition 
which  we  admire.  There  is  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a 
sun  worship  of  a  not  exalted  character  in  the  same  land  of 
Crete.  The  bull-headed  Minotaur  can  hardly  have  been 
anything  else  than  a  sun  god,  one  of  the  Asiatic  stamp : 
the  Cnossian  labyrinth  has  a  totally  Oriental  appearance, 
and  reminds  us  of  that  celebrated  garden  of  Mylitta  in 
Babylon  which  Herodotus  describes.2 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  through  much  com- 
merce with  other  peoples,  through  much  friction  and  inter- 
change of  ideas,  that  the  Greek  religion  in  its  entirety, 
the  cult  of  Apollo  and  of  Athene  alike,  grew  to  be  what 
they  were.  But  let  us  not  say  that  Athene  and  Apollo 
were  on  this  account  less  truly  Hellenic.  It  was  with  the 
history  of  belief  as  it  was  with  the  history  of  art ;  the  first 
forms  were  borrowed  from  the  East,  from  Phoanicians, 
Assyrians,  or  Egyptians.  But  that  which  infused  life  into 
these  forms,  which  placed  a  spirit  in  their  bodies,  and  a 
breath  in  their  members,  that  was  wholly  Greek. 

Even  before  the  time  of  Minos — that  is,  before  the 
Doric  kingdom  in  Crete  had  put  to  silence  the  older 


1  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  original  Minos  was  a  Dorian.     Minos 
was  really  to  the  Greeks  no  one  else  than  what  Adam  is  to  us,  what 
Yama  was  to  the  Indians,  and  Yima  to  the  Persians.     But  as  Yima  grew 
into  the  hero,  Yamshid  (Jamshld),  so  Minos  became  the  typical  earliest 
king.    The  first  Mngdom  of  the  Greek  race  was  the  kingdom  of   Minos, 
in  Crete.    This  was,  perhaps  (as  suggested,  p.  166),  originally  an  Ionian  (or 
Yavan)  kingdom,  but  at  the  time  to  which  Greek  tradition  points  back  it 
had  become  by  conquest  a  Dorian  one. 

2  Herod,  i.  199. 


THE  BIRTH   OF  APOLLO. 


183 


Doric  rule  in  Olympus — the  shrine  of  Apollo  had  been 
founded  on  Delos.  Delos  was  afterwards  deemed  to  be 
the  navel  of  the  earth ;  because,  being  in  special  favour 
with  Apollo,  it  might  be  thought  to  stand  under  the 
eye  of  the  midday  sun.  It  was  also  deemed  the  birth- 
place of  the  god,  because  it  lay  in  mid-^Egaean  and  the 
sun  is  born  from  the  sea;  and  also  probably  because  it 
was  one  of  the  earliest  shrines  of  the  deity.  This  island, 
standing  as  it  does  half-way  between  Europe  and  Asia, 
and  half-way  between  Olympus  and  Crete,  is  a  type  of 
the  cult  of  Apollo,  which  was  the  meeting-point  between 
the  Oriental  and  the  Occidental  Greeks. 

Last  of  all,  the  Dorian  migrations  which  took  place 
about  the  tenth  century  before  our  era,  starting  from  the 
Doric  tetrapolis,  the  cities  of  Erineus,  Bceum,  Find  us,  and 
Cytinium — for  to  this  neighbourhood  the  Dorians  of 
Olympus  and  Tempe  had  gradually  moved — carried  the 
Delphic  worship  of  the  god  over  the  whole  Peloponnese. 
Thus  by  example,  or  more  direct  enforcement,  the  new 
creed  spread  on  every  side,  until  the  god  was  honoured 
wherever  the  Greek  tongue  was  spoken — 

Through  the  calf-breeding  mainland  and  through  the  isles.1 

The  old  poems — those  two  hymns,  for  example,  which 
have  been  joined  into  one  and  called  the  Homeric  hymn 
to  Apollo — have  not  very  much  which  is  reliable  to  give  us 
out  Df  their  tradition.  The  mythic  journeys  of  the  god  have 
but  few  grains  of  history  interspersed  in  them,  and  these 
grains  are  not  easily  discoverable.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Homeric  hymn  tells  not  obscurely  other  facts  which  are 
in  their  way  historical ;  it  relates  the  nature  and  the  deeds 
of  the  sun  god  as  he  presented  himself  to  the  eyes  of 
those  who  composed  the  hymn.  We  know  how  nearly 
the  sun  god  has  always  touched  the  sympathies  of  man- 
kind, and  how  he  has  generally  assumed  an  office  more 

1  Hymn,  in  Apol.  21. 


184  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

h-uman  than  that  of  any  other  nature  god.  The  sun 
itself  has  many  aspects.  There  is  therefore  enough  in 
the  nature  of  the  sun  god  to  furnish  more  than  one  in- 
dividuality. There  are  high  sun  gods  and  low  sun  gods 
and  suns  who  are  bnt  demi-gods  or  heroes.  The  manhood 
of  Apollo  never  sinks  him  low.  He  is  human  in  his  sym- 
pathies, and  in  many  incidents  of  his  life,  but  he  is  also 
completely  god-like  in  dignity. 

Son  of  the  '  Concealed '  (Leto),  or,  in  other  words,  of 
the  Darkness,  Apollo  was  born  in  suffering  upon  the 
island  of  Delos.  The  hymn  tells  how  his  mother  first 
wandered  from  land  to  land,  and  how  one  coast  after 
another  refused  to  receive  her,  dreading  to  give  birth  to 
the  Far-Darter  because  of  the  anger  of  Hera.  But  at 
last  she  came  to  rugged  Delos,  and  to  her  prayer  that 
island  listened  :  there  for  nine  days  l  she  laboured  in  pain 
and  could  not  be  delivered,  because  Hera  hindered  the 
birth.  But  at  length  the  hour  was  accomplished,  and 
then  the  bright  one  leaped  into  light,  and  all  the  attend- 
ant goddesses  gave  a  shout  (we  have  here  an  echo  of 
an  old  belief  —petrified  in  the  myth  of  Memnon — that  at 
the  hour  of  sunrise  the  horizon  sends  forth  a  sound 2) 
and  Delos  grew  all  golden.  Then  the  goddesses  washed 
him  in  fair  water,  purely  and  holily,  and  (beautiful  picture 
of  the  sun  wrapped  in  the  golden- threaded  clouds  of 
dawn)  they  wrapped  him  in  a  white  robe,  and  around  it 
did  a  golden  band.  Thus  arose  the  Far-Darter,  the  god 
of  the  silver  bow,  whose  arrows  are  the  rays,  whose 
golden  sword  is  the  heat  of  the  sun. 

The  hymn  has  much  to  tell  us  concerning  the  tradition- 

1  The  mystical  number  nine  is  especially  connected  with  Apollo  (cf.  the 
nine  muses)  and  with  the  sun  ;  its  curious  repetition  in  the  Odysseus  myth 
(see  note  to  p.  303)  is  the  best  justification  for  those  who  would  interpret 
the  wanderings  of  that  hero  as  a  sun  myth.     I  think,  however,  I  have 
shown  in  Ch.  VI.  that  the  sun  myth  may  have  had  its  influence  upon  the 
story  of  Odysseus  without  be'ng  in  any  sense  its  real  foundation. 

2  I  imagine  that  the  origin  of  this  myth  is  the  realisation  of  the  Hrtli  of 
the  sun,  and  the  cry  of  pain  which  mother  Nature  (or  mother  Earth) 

at  that  hour. 


APOLLO   AT   DELPHI.  185 

ary  spread  of  Apollo  worship,  mingling  these  details 
with  others  which  belong  purely  to  the  nature  myth. 
But  we  have  not  a  complete  biography  of  Apollo,  as  we 
have  of  Heracles,  and  for  the  reason  that  a  life  implies  a 
death,  and  Apollo  does  not  die.  He  is  immortal,  un- 
changeable among  the  Olympians,  next  in  majesty  to  his 
father.  All  the  gods  fear  him  as  he  goes  through  the 
house  of  Zeus,  and  all  rise  from  their  seats  when  he 
passes,  stretching  his  wondrous  bow.  He  is  in  this  hymn 
a  terrible  and  proud  god,  who  lords  it  over  mortals  and 
immortals.  If  Apollo's  name  do  really  mean  'the  de- 
stroyer,* we  cannot  doubt  that  once  he  was  as  fierce  and 
dangerous  as  Ares  himself.  The  sun  hero  is  ever  a  war- 
rior. The  dark  coils  of  cloud  against  which  Indra 
launched  his  thunderbolt  wait  to  devour  Apollo,  unless  he 
can  destroy  them  first.  The  cloud  serpent  Ahi  is  in  this 
case  the  Python  ;  and  the  serpent  destroyer  is  not  now 
the  god  of  storm,  but  the  sun.  No  sooner  has  the  god 
been  born  than  he  begins  his  life  of  adventure  and  of 
war. 

His  first  journey  was  that  which  broiight  him  to 
Delphi.  The  bright  open  country  pleased  the  god,  and  he 
wished  to  found  a  temple  there.  But  he  was  turned  from 
his  purpose  by  the  river  goddess,  Telphusa,  who  fraudfully 
persuaded  him  that  the  place,  with  its  flocks  and  herds  of 
wild  horses  and  its  races  and  charioteers,  was  an  unfit 
place  for  the  solitude  of  his  shrine,  and  would  have  him 
pass  on  to  the  gorge  of  Parnassus.  This  she  did  because 
she  desired  to  keep  her  renown  in  the  land,  and  she 
hoped  that  Apollo  would  be  killed  by  the  serpent  who 
inhabited  the  ravine.  The  god  then  passed  on,  and 
founded  a  shrine  at  Crissa  (whence  it  was  afterwards 
moved  a  little  inland  to  the  historic  Delphi).  Here  he 
discovered  the  great  serpent.  Hera  had  brought  this 
monster  forth,  like  neither  to  gods  nor  mortals,  a  bane  to 
men.  And  her  the  Far-Darter  slew  with  his  arrows,  and 
she  writhed  among  the  woods,  and  gave  up  her  life,  spout- 


186  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

ing  forth  blood.  And  the  sun  rotted  her  carcass,  whence 
she  was  called  Pytlio  after  death. 

This  last  myth  has  a  general  and  a  local  significance. 
The  general  significance  is  the  war  which,  according  to 
many  different  mythologies,  the  sun  god  carries  on  against 
the  river  god.  The  great  river  which  is  the  sum  of  all  the 
lesser  fetiches  of  this  kind  is  the  earth  river,  which  flows  all 
round  the  world  and  which  the  Greeks  knew  by  the  name 
Oceanos.  Perhaps  in  its  widest  significance  the  contest 
between  the  sun  god  and  the  river  is  a  combat  with  this 
earth  river.  For  this  is  the  destroyer  of  the  sun.-  Into 
Oceanos  the  sun  sinks  every  night  and  dies.  The  river 
smothers  him  in  its  coils  and  puts  an  end  to  his  life ;  and 
before  that  could  happen  there  must  have  been  a  battle 
between  the  two.  This,  I  suppose,  is  the  general  signifi- 
cance of  the  fights  between  the  sun  god  and  the  river ; 
combats  which  come  forward  so  conspicuously  in  the  case 
of  the  Norse  god  Thorr  and  the  earth-girding  serpent 
Jormungandr.  And  yet  this  typical  battle  is  enacted 
again  every  time  the  sun  dries  up  some  local  stream ;  so 
that  in  the  story  of  the  Python- slay  ing,  beside  the  deeper 
significance  which  made  it  the  same  as  the  contests  of 
Thorr  with  Jormungandr,  of  Heracles  with  the  Lernean 
hydra,  and  the  combats  between  Indra  and  Ahi,  there  is 
the  relic  of  a  lesser  local  myth  which  recorded  only  the 
drying  up  of  the  stream  of  Mount  Parnassus. 

Much  might  be  said  in  this  place  of  the  myths  re- 
lated of  Apollo ;  for  the  myths  which  belong  to  the  sun 
are  in  most  systems  more  numerous  than  those  which 
attach  to  any  other  phenomenon.  But  the  subject  of  sun 
myths  has  perhaps  received  an  undue  amount  of  attention 
in  comparison  with  the  myths  of  any  other  part  of  nature ; 
and  therefore  there  is  no  need  to  stay  long  upon  them 
here.  Among  the  sun  myths  which  characterise  best  the 
nature  of  Apollo  we  will  glance  at  one  or  two. 

In  the  whole  repertory  of  folk  tales  there  is  none  more 
touching  nor  none  which  is  a  greater  favourite  in  popular 


HIS  WANDERINGS.  187 

lore  than  that  which  tells  of  the  hero  hiding  his  great- 
ness for  a  while  in  a  servile  state,  or  beneath  a  beggar's 
gabardine,  receiving  the  sneers  and  slights  of  his  com- 
rades in  patience,  because  he  knows  that  his  time  will 
come  and  he  can  afford  to  wait.  The  story  naturally  at- 
taches to  the  sun,  as  his  life  is  the  type  of  the  heroic 
one ;  and,  as  we  see  from  the  above  history,  it  does  not 
pass  over  Apollo.  For  the  god  was  born  upon  the  smallest 
and  ruggedest  of  all  the  jEgsean  islands  ;  all  other  lands 
rejected  him  because  he  was  under  the  ban  of  Hera.  And 
like  the  prince  when  he  throws  off  his  disguise  and  gilds 
all  things  with  his  greatness,  and  arms  himself  for  heroic 
deeds,  so  does  Apollo  seem  when  he  makes  Delos  most 
honoured  of  all  places  and  rich  with  many  gifts.  Accord- 
ing to  another  tale,  Apollo  was,  after  the  slaughter  of  the 
Python,  for  purification  from  blood,  condemned  to  become 
a  servant  and  to  feed  the  horses  of  Admetus ;  at  another 
time  he  served  Laomedon  and  built  a  wall  for  him  round 
Ilium.  All  these  stories  have  the  same  intent. 

Again,  the  sun  is  the  wandering  god.  No  sooner  was 
Apollo  born  than  he  started  upon  his  travels.  He  went 
to  rocky  Pytho,  playing  upon  his  harp.  From  Olympus 
he  descended  to  *  sandy  Lecton  to  the  Magnesians,  and 
went  amid  the  Perrhsebians.'  Or,  according  to  another 
part  of  the  hymn,  taking  the  shape  of  a  dolphin,  he  guided 
men  from  Crete  to  Crissa,  that  they  might  spread  abroad 
his  fame  in  that  region.  This  plunging  of  the  god  into 
the  water,  and  his  taking  the  shape  of  a  fish,  is  the  set- 
ting of  the  sun ;  and  the  birth  of  Apollo  in  the  mid-2Egsean 
is  his  rising.  Both  are  alike  parts  of  the  sun's  daily 
journey. 

Another  example  of  the  connection  between  Apollo's 
history  and  popular  lore  is  to  be  found  in  the  story  told  us 
by  Apollodorus,  how  soon  after  his  birth  he  was  carried 
away  on  the  back  of  swans  to  the  country  of  the  Hyper- 
boreans, where  he  remained  until  a  year  had  run  out. 
This  is  in  no  way  different  from  that  common  Teutonic 


188  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

legend  of  the  swan  knight  who  as  a  child  is  borne  away  by 
birds  of  the  same  species  to  some  distant  land,  some 
earthly  paradise,  and  returns  at  last  in  the  like  fashion. 
In  the  case  of  Lohengrin  the  knight  comes  in  a  barge 
which  a  swan  is  dragging  along  as  he  swims ;  and  so,  in 
this  example,  Apollo's  dolphin  voyage  and  his  swan  flight 
through  the  air  are,  in  a  manner,  combined  into  one 
picture. 

The  wandering  Apollo  led  the  Dorians  to  Crissa.  But 
I  do  not  think  this  was  the  only  occasion  on  which  he 
became  their  guide.  The  sun,  in  all  migrations  and  in  all 
wanderings,  is  ever  the  leader ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that 
Apollo  had  been  at  the  head  of  all  the  adventures  of  the 
Doric  race.  But  when  these  last  had  adopted  Heracles 
from  the  men  of  the  land  to  which  they  came,  they  trans- 
ferred this  character  of  leader  from  the  god  to  the  denii- 
god.  As  K.  O.  Miiller  says,  f  everything  which  is  related 
of  the  exploits  of  Heracles  in  the  north  of  Greece  refers 
exclusively  to  the  history  of  the  Dorians,  and  conversely  all 
the  actions  of  the  Doric  race  in  their  earliest  settlements 
are  fabulously  represented  in  the  person  of  Heracles.'1 
To  account  for  the  migrations  of  the  Dorians,  a  so-called 
'return  of  the  Heraclidse'  was  invented  and  placed  under 
the  special  guidance  of  Heracles. 

The  transfer  to  this  last  god  or  demi-god  of  some  of 
the  deeds  of  Apollo  had  two  causes,  and  has  two  aspects. 
In  one  aspect  it  was  a  reassertioii  of  the  importance  of 
the  older  demi-god,  o£  him,  that  is  to  say,  whom  the 
Pelasgic  Greeks  had  worshipped  before  they  knew  Apollo. 
But  it  has  another  significance  beside  this.  Heracles  re- 
mained essentially  the  lower  divinity,  the  peasants'  god ; 
Apollo  was  the  god  of  the  higher  race.  Wherefore  it  was 
natural  to  ascribe  to  the  former  those  deeds  which  were 
most  essentially  human  in  character.  Apollo  was  raised 
to  a  loftier  and  remoter  sphere  so  soon  as  he  had  been 

1  Dorians,  Eng.  translation,  p.  56. 


DEATHS  OF  APOLLO  AND  HERACLES.  189 

purged  of  the  more  human  parts  of  his  nature,  and  these 
had  been  passed  over  to  Heracles. 

We  note  the  effects  of  this  change  in  one  matter  of 
supreme  importance  belonging  to  the  mythic  history  of 
the- sun.  We  have  already  seen  how  necessarily  it  belongs 
to  the  sun's  nature  that  he  should  be  born  weak,  and 
suffer  hardships  in  his  childhood ;  how  it  belongs  to  him 
that  he  should  be  a  wanderer  and  a  fightetr.  But  not  less 
than  all  this  it  appertains  to  his  character  that  he  should 
die.  It  is  this  last  act  which  makes  the  nature  of  the 
sun  god  approach  the  nearest  to  human  nature.  Where- 
fore it  is  an  action  sure  to  be  brought  into  prominence  in 
the  case  of  a  sun  god  who  has  sunk  some  way  toward  the 
human  level,  and  is  sure  to  be  as  much  as  possible  sup- 
pressed in  the  case  of  a  god  who  has  come  to  be  raised 
very  high  above  the  level  of  mankind.  This  truth  is  illus- 
trated in  the  persons  of  Heracles  and  Apollo. 

The  dea.th  of  Heracles  is  the  most  impressive  incident 
in  all  his  varied  history.  No  one  who  reads  the  account 
of  it  can,  I  think,  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  likeness. of  the 
picture  to  an  image  of  the  setting  sun.  The  hero  return- 
ing home,  has  reached  the  shore  of  the  JEggean,  when 
Lichas  comes  to  meet  him,  bearing  the  fatal  shirt  poisoned 
with  the  blood  of  Nessus.  At  starting  upon  his  voyage 
Heracles  puts  it  on,  and  straightway  the  burning  folds 
cling  to  his  body,  just  as  the  sunset  clouds  cling  round 
the  setting  sun.1  Feeling  that  his  end  is  near,  Heracles 
orders  Lichas  to  make  him  a  mound  upon  Mount  (Eta — 
on  the  western  shore  of  the  ^Egsean,  as  we  note — and  there 
is  he  burned.  The  flame  of  his  pyre  shines  out  far  over 

1  All  this  has  been  better  said  in  Sir  G.  Cox's  Mythology  of  the  Aryan 
Nations,  and.  in  the  same  writer's  Tales  of  Ancient  Greece,.  I  am,  I  confess, 
among  those  who  think  that  the  learned  writer  has  used  too  much  in- 
genuity in  hunting  out  possible  '  sun  myths.'  But  that  this  story  and 
many  others  are  sun  myths  I  feel  no  manner  of  doubt.  The  universality 
of  folk  tales  argues  nothing  against  the  existence  of  nature  myths  of  this 
kind.  Even  if  many  of  the  tales  had  been  invented  before  nature  worship 
began,  they  would  inevitably  get  transferred  to  those  gods  whose  characters 
they  fitted. 


190  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  sea  as  the  sun's  last  rays  shine  out  in  the  light  of  the 
fiery  sky.  So,  too,  in  a  Northern  myth,  Hringhorni,  the 
funeral  ship  of  Balder — that  is  to  say,  the  barque  of  the 
sun — is  described  as  drifting  out  burning  into  the  west. 
The  Northmen  never  upheld  the  idea  that  their  gods  were 
immortal,  and  therefore  it  was  no  difficulty  to  them  to  tell 
of  the  death  of  the  sun.  Neither  was  it  difficult  for  the 
Greeks  to  tell  of  the  death  of  Heracles,  because  Heracles 
was  not  one  of  the  true  Olympian  gods.  He  had  only  by 
sufferance  his  place  on  Olympus,  and  had  left  behind  him 
in  Hades  (as  a  sort  of  pledge)  his  shade,  which  still  stalked 
about  those  darksome  fields.1  It  was  far  harder  to  realise 
that  Apollo  could  ever  have  suffered  death,  and  accord- 
ingly we  find  that  the  memory  of  that  part  of  his  career 
was  almost  forgotten  in  the  latter  days. 

Yet  there  are  relics  of  myths  which  were  myths  of 
Apollo's  dying.  One  is  this.  When  Apollo  had  slain  the 
Python,  he  had,  as  we  have  seen,  to  purify  himself ;  and 
part  of  his  purification  consisted  in  serving  in  the  stables 
of  Adrnetos,  and  in  tending  his  horses  on  the  sides  of 
Pierus.2  Now  Admetus,  as  Otfried  Miiller  has  shown,  is 
really  one  of  the  by-names  of  Hades;  so  that  Apollo's 
service  in  this  case  is  a  descent  to  the  under  world.  No 
doubt  but  this  is  some  relic  of  an  earlier  myth,  which 
gave  to  the  great  battle  between  Apollo  and  the  Serpent 
a  different  ending  from  that  now  known  to  us,  making  the 
god  worsted  and  not  victorious  in  his  fight  with  the  powers 
of  darkness.  Another  indication  of  a  descent  to  hell  is 
found  in  the  share  which  Apollo  takes  in  the  recall  of 
Alcestis  from  the  realm  of  Death  and  her  restoration  to  her 
husband.  It  is  here  that  the  likeness  between  the  Greek  god 
and  the  Christian  Saviour  which  has  been  insisted  on  by 


1  Od.  xi.  601.     Heracles   also  makes  a  temporary  descent  to   Hades, 
and  brings  back  Cerberus.     This  combat,  and  that  of  Heracles  with  Thana- 
tos,  in  the  story  of  Alcestis,  are  instances  of  victory  over  death  on  the  part 
of  the  hero. 

2  II.  ii.  766. 


RSITY 


ZEUS  AND  APOLLO  IN  THE  ILIAD. 

many  writers  reaches  its  culminating  point.  Of  course 
every  sun  god  must  descend  to  the  world  of  shades,  but 
all  do  not  rise  again:  none  rise  more  victoriously  than 
Apollo  does,  harrowing  Hell,  as  it  were,  and  bringing 
back  the  spoils  in  the  person  of  Alcestis.  Just  so,  accord- 
ing to  Middle  Age  tradition,  did  Christ,  after  going  down 
into  Hell,  spoil  from  its  clutches  the  patriarchs  of  the  Old 
Testament,  Adam  and  Abel,  Noah,  Moses,  Abraham,  and 
the  greatest  among  the  seed  of  Abraham. 

lo  era  nuovo  in  questo  loco, 
Qnando  ci  vidi  venire  nn  Possente, 
Con  segno  di  vittoria  incorronato. 
Trassaci  1'  ombra  del  Primo  Parente, 
D'  Abel  suo  figlio,  e  quella  di  Noe, 
Di  Moise  legista,  e  ubbidiente 
Abraarn  Patrarca,  e  David  Be, 
Israel  con  suo  padre,  co'  sui  nati, 
E  con  Bachele  per  cui  tanto  fe* 
Ed  altri  molti ;  e  fecegli  beati. 

The  history  of  the  development  of  Apollo's  character, 
then,  is  the  gradual  exaltation  of  his  nature  to  suit  the 
growing  needs  of  men.  All  that  was  lowest  in  it,  and  all 
that  seemed  inconsistent  with  the  highest  degree  of  power, 
all  that  was  fierce  and  rude,  all  that  was  too  human  in 
weakness,  could  be  transferred  to  one  of  the  older  sun  gods — 
to  Heracles,  say,  or  to  Ares — until  at  last  the  god  of  Hellas 
became  the  prototype  of  the  highest  development  of  Greek 
culture.  In  Homer  he  is  not  only  the  greatest  of  all  the 
sun  gods  ;  he  is  superior  in  character  to  almost  every 
other  deity.  In  the  Iliad,  though  Zeus  is  the  most  mighty 
of  the  two,  Apollo's  is  certainly  the  more  majestic  figure. 
There  is  something  very  suggestive  in  the  remoteness  of 
Apollo  from  the  passion  of  partisanship  which  sways  the 
other  Olympians  ;  first  the  terror  of  his  coming  to  revenge 
a  slight  done  to  himself,  and  then  his  withdrawal  for  a 
long  time  from  all  part  in  the  combat  after  that  injury 
has  been  thoroughly  atoned  for. 


192  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

One  cannot  help  seeing  a  certain  analogy  in  the 
characters  and  positions  of  the  chief  actors  in  the  drama 
of  the  Iliad,  Agamemnon  and  Achilles,  and  those  two 
heavenly  spectators  Zeus  and  Apollo.1  Zeus  is  the  king 
of  gods,  as  Agamemnon  of  men,  and,  despite  the  fact  that 
Zeus  sides  with  the  Trojans,  there  is  a  bond  of  union 
between  the  god  and  the  mortal.  Agamemnon  always  ad- 
dresses himself  first  to  Zeus,  even  to  the  Zeus  who  rules 
on  Ida,  and  when  the  Achseans  are  sacrificing  some  to  one 
god,  some  to  another,  his  prayer  is  to  the  King  of  Heaven.2 
The  likeness  between  Apollo  and  Achilles  scarcely  needs  to 
be  pointed  out.  Achilles  is  a  sun  hero  and  Apollo  is  a  sun 
god;  that  is  really  all  the  difference  between  them.  Each 
is  the  ideal  youth,  the  representative,  one  might  fairly  say, 
of  '  young  Greece,5  that  which  was  to  become  in  after  years 
Hellas.  Achilles  is  from  the  very  primal  Hellas,  whence 
the  whole  country  eventually  took  its  name.  Apollo  and 
Achilles  have  the  same  sense  of  strength  in  reserve  and 
an  abstinence  from  participation  in  the  battle  going  on 
around  :  each  is  provoked  to  do  so  only  by  some  very  near 
personal  injury. 

M.  Didron,  in  his  interesting  work  on  Christian  icono- 
graphy, gives  us  a  sketch  of  the  relative  positions  in  art 
occupied  during  the  Middle  Ages  by  the  two  first  persons 
of  the  Trinity,  whence  we  can  gather  their  positions  in 
popular  belief,  of  which  art  is  the  mouthpiece.  We  find 
that  at  first  God  the  Father  never  appears  ;  His  presence 
is  indicated  by  a  hand  or  by  some  other  symbol,  He  has 
no  visible  place  in  the  picture  ;  and  when  at  last  He  takes 
a  bodily  shape,  His  form  is  borrowed  from  that  of  His 
Son.  It  is  Christ  who,  in  the  monuments  of  the  fourth 
to  the  tenth  centuries,  is  generally  portrayed  performing 

1  On  the  whole  it  must  be  noticed  that  Zeus  and  Apollo,  unlike  Athene 
and  Hera,  do  not  engage  personally  in  the  fight— Apollo  does  so  once  or 
twice— but  use  their  powers  as  nature  gods.     Zeus  especially  acts  in  this 
way :  Apollo  does  so  in  the  case  of  the  demolition  of  the  Achaeans'  wa.l 
(bk.  xii.)     8ee  also  the  great  tight  of  the  gods  in  the  xxth  book. 

2  Cf.  II.  ii.  403,  412  ;  iii.  276. 


ZEUS  AND  APOLLO  IN  THE  ILIAD.  193 

those  works  which,  in  the  Old  Testament  are  ascribed  to 
Jehovah ;  Christ  makes  the  world,  the  sun  and  moon,  and 
raises  Eve  out  of  the  side  of  Adam.  Before  the  tenth  cen- 
tury the  usual  type  of  Christ  is  a  very  young  man.  After 
that  century  He  is  some  thirty  years  of  age ;  and  then  the 
Father  begins  to  be  seen.  He  is  fashioned  in  nearly  the 
same  manner,  and  is  no  older  and  no  younger  than  His  Son. 
This  implies  that,  during  the  early  ages  of  Christianity, 
Christ  had  quite  excluded  the  Father  from  the  thoughts 
of  most  men ;  and  I  think  we  have  only  to  read  the 
literature  of  this  time — the  profane  literature  especially, 
the  histories  or  memoirs — to  see  that  such  was  the  case. 
The  reason  of  th  is  was  that  Christ  was  the  active  Divinity ; 
the  history  of  His  life  and  death,  His  labours  and 
sufferings,  was  constantly  before  the  popular  mind.  He 
absorbed  all  characters  of  the  Trinity  into  His  individual 
person. 

A  similar  thing,  we  have  seen,  happened  in  the  case  of 
Indra  and  Dyaus,  and  of  Zeus  and  his  predecessor ;  the 
change  might  have  been  enacted  once  more  in  the  case  of 
Zeus  and  Apollo.  And  perhaps  this  would  have  happened 
if  the  Dorians  had  worked  out  their  religious  history  for 
themselves.  For  the  Doric  Zeus  was  an  abstract  and  in- 
active god ;  he  alone  never  would  have  received,  never  did 
receive,  great  religious  honours.  'The  supreme  deity, 
when  connected  with  Apollo,  was  neither  born  nor  visible 
on  earth,  and  was  perhaps  never  considered  as  having  any 
immediate  influence  on  men.' l 

As  this  Doric  religion  met  with  the  Pelasgic  creed,  and 
the  active  and  the  passive  Zeus  had  to  be  rolled  into  one, 
and  the  Apollo  to  conquer  a  place  for  himself  in  the  belief 
of  all  Hellas,  there  was  at  first,  I  doubt  not,  seme  conflict 
between  the  rival  systems;  much  like  that  conflict  be- 
tween the  earthly  Agamemnon  and  Achilles.  Sometimes 

Apollo  appears  higher  and  sometimes  lower  than  Zeus. 

• 

1  Miillcr,  Dorian*. 
O 


194  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

In  Homer's  picture  the  father  is  far  more  susceptible  of 
human  passion,  far  less  self-contained  and  self-reliant, 
than  his  son  :  but  then  on  the  other  hand  Hesiod,  writing 
in  the  mainland  of  Greece  a  century  or  two  later,  neglects 
Apollo  almost  completely.  So  that  the  view  which 
Homer  presents  of  Zeus  and  his  son  may  have  been  ex- 
clusively an  Ionic  one.  And,  concerning  Zeus,  I  think 
we  can  see  that  very  late — as  far  down,  for  instance,  as  the 
time  of  .ZEschylus — two  very  different  pictures  might  be 
presented  to  the  popular  mind,  the  one  that  of  the  usurp- 
ing god  of  the  Prometheus,  the  other  the  Zeus  to  whom 
the  Suppliants  pray. 

The  mountains  have  given  way  to  Zeus  in  a  Titan 
struggle  against  the  new  gods  ;  the  trees  have  been  carved, 
into  images  of  unseen  powers ;  the  fountains,  dissolving 
themselves  into  mists,  have  floated  heavenwards,  and  thus 
a  new  race  of  ethereal  beings  has  supplanted  those  who 
were  born  on  earth. 

An  in tei mediate  stage  it  was  while  the  mist  still 
lingered  above  the  river  and  the  cloud  upon  the  sea.  At 
such  a  time  took  place  the  birth  of  some  among  the  great 
goddesses  of  Greece.  Aphrodite,  for  example,  is  one 
among  this  sisterhood  of  the  mist-born  ones,  rising  as  she 
does  from  the  foam  and  coming  as  she  comes  over  the 
waves  of  the  far-sounding  sea,  borne  on  the  soft  spray ; 
and  another  sister  is  Artemis,  who  is  in  reality  a  river 
nymph.  But  chief  of  all  that  company  is  Athene  Trito- 
geneia,  the  daughter  of  Triton.1  Triton  means  not  water 
in  the  abstract,  but  some  definite  form  of  it,  as  a  par- 
ticular inlet  or  river  or  strait,  and  the  Athene  of  each 
place  had  no  doubt  her  parentage  in  the  particular  piece 
of  water  known  to  that  place.  It  were  not  too  much  to 
say  that  the  Athene  of  Athens  was  the  child  of  Ilissus 

— no  mean  god  even  in  late  times,  for  he  had  his  place 

» 

1  She  is  called  also  TrovTia,  Ba\a<ra-ia,  etin\oia — sea-born,  in  a  word,  like 
Aphrodite. 


ATH£N£.  195 

on  the  pediment  of  the  Parthenon — and  that  out  of  the 
worship  of  that  very  river  first  sprang  the  conception  of 
the  Athenian  goddess.  For  of  course  each  place  had  its 
local  fountain  and  local  nymph.  It  was  a  matter  of 
chance  which  of  the  fountain  goddesses  attained  pre- 
eminence and  extended  her  name  over  the  rest.  This 
alone  is  certain :  whatever  the  history  of  Athene's  origin, 
whichever  among  the  worshipped  mists  it  may  have  been 
who  was  her  prototype,  the  subsequent  career  of  the  god- 
dess was  such  as  to  make  her  peculiarly  adaptive  to  Greek 
ideas ;  so  that  she  became  at  last  the  most  truly  Hellenic 
of  all  the  watery  divinities. 

The  same  fate  did  not  attend  all.  Aphrodite  was  born 
in  some  region  where  she  was  subject  to  Oriental  in- 
fluences ;  from  which  she  received  into  her  nature  most 
of  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  neighbouring  Eastern 
goddesses,  such  as  the  Astarte  of  the  Phoenicians,  the 
Mylitta  of  the  Babylonians.  These  were  properly  earth 
goddesses,  and  had  all  the  sensuous  character  which 
belongs  to  this  order  of  beings.  And  so  Aphrodite  be- 
came earthy  and  sensuous.  Yet  she  is  to  be  seen  in 
other  guises.  She  was  sometimes  represented  armed  like 
Athene,  and  in  such  guise  she  was  scarcely  distinguish- 
able from  Pallas. 

If,  then,  it  was  an  accident  of  birth  which  transformed 
Aphrodite  into  Kupris,  an  accident  of  birth  and  of  edu- 
cation, it  was  an  accident  also  which  rescued  Athene 
from  such  blighting  influences.  There  are  two  genea- 
logies for  the  race  of  goddesses.  One  is  of  the  earth,  and 
then  the  deity  is  Prithivi  or  Demeter,  who  marries  the 
heaven  god,  and  becomes  either  the  ideal  mother  goddess 
or  else,  like  the  Mylitta  of  Babylon,  the  Cybele  of  Phrygia, 
the  Astarte.  of  Tyre,  a  goddess  of  sensuous  delights. 
The  other  birth  is  from  the  stream  or  the  sea,  and  then, 
if  she  follow  her  natural  instincts,  the  goddess  rises 
heavenward,  and  becomes  first  the  cloud,  and  after  merges 
into  the  wind  or  the  air.  It  belongs  to  the  essential  cha- 

o  2 


196  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

racter  of  such  an  one  that  she  is  not  sensuous.  Her 
special  characteristic  is  her  maidenhood.  Athene  is  ever 
called  in  Homer  Maid  Athene  (Pallas- Athene).  Parthenos, 
another  word  for  virgin,  was  her  peculiar  title.  Indeed, 
it  was  so  recognisedly  a  sufficient  designation  of  her  at 
Athens,  that  her  temple  was  called  the  Parthenon  simply, 
instead  of  the  more  natural  Athenaion  (Athenaeum).  In 
the  Homeric  hymn  addressed  to  her  she  is  called  Core 
(/covprj).  In  another  Homeric  hymn,  addressed  to  Aphro- 
dite, it  is  said  that  there  are  but  three  whom  the  Queen 
of  Love  has  never  subdued,  and  these  are  Hestia,  Athene, 
and  Artemis. 

And  here  let  me  turn  aside  a  moment  to  point  out  to 
the  reader  how  the  essential  identity  in  the  characters  of 
Athene  and  Artemis  is  indicated  by  their  virgin  natures. 
We  know  how  universally  the  latter  goddess  was  cele- 
brated for  her  chastity  and  modesty,  so  that  even  to  see 
her  naked,  as  Actseon  did,  was  a  mortal  offence,  which  did 
not  fail  to  meet  with  mortal  punishment ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  was  a  sin  no  less  deadly  for  Artemis' 
maidens  to  offend  against  the  moral  sense  of  the  goddess 
by  breaking  their  vows  of  maidenhood — as  in  the  case  of 
Callisto.  Now  we  find  Athene  sufficiently  designated  as 
Parthenos,  the  maiden  par  excellence.  And  yet  those  who 
had  known  both  Athene  and  Artemis  could  never  have  used 
the  names  Pallas  and  Parthenos  as  synonyms  for  Athene. 
Seeing,  then,  that  chastity  is  the  leading  characteristic  of 
Artemis  (as  the  most  important  myths  about  her  show), 
and  that  the  chastity,  i.e.  the  maidenhood,  of  Athene  was 
so  necessary  and  distinctive  a  part  of  her  nature  that  she 
was  known  as  the  maiden,  we  are  justified  in  saying  that 
Artemis  and  Athene  were  of  identical  nature. 

Artemis  was  originally  a  stream ;  she  was  of  the  same 
nature  as  her  attendant  nymph  the  c  leaping '  Atalanta,1 
one  of  the  great  mythic  huntresses  of  antiquity  and  un- 

to  leap. 


AND  AETEMIS.  197 

doubtedly  a  fountain.  Athene,  too,  was  originally  born  of 
the  stream.  Both  were,  on  account  of  this  birth,  pure 
maidens;  and  being  such,  both  became  afterwarda  con- 
founded with  the  moon.1  Apollo  and  Athene  are  neces- 
sarily closely  connected,  as  the  idealisations  of  the  young 
male  divinity  and  the  young  female  divinity  ;  still  closer, 
however,  is  the  relationship  between  Apollo  and  Artemis. 

Artemis,  then,  was  at  first  the  same  as  Athene.  The 
two  had  the  same  origin  in  the  outer  world  of  phenomena, 
and  for  awhile  their  characters  must  have  unfolded  side 
by  side.  But  the  circumstances  of  their  after  lives  were 
very  different.  Artemis  was  a  goddess  chiefly  of  the  less 
cultured  populations  of  Greece — that  is  to  say,  of  those 
who  dwelt  in  the  interior  of  the  Peloponnese.  Athene, 
on  the  contrary,  became  the  tutelary  divinity  of  the  most 
highly  civilised  city  in  all  Hellas.  She  daily  waxed 
greater,  and  the  other  waned.  Athene's  history  was  pre- 
served by  the  best  literature  of  Greece  ;  Artemis  was  left 
in  the  shade  among  her  Arcadian  shepherds,  and  fell 
down  to  the  second  rank  of  goddesses.  This  difference  in 
their  respective  histories  was  partly  accidental :  it  was,  at 
all  events,  independent  of  their  essential  natures,  and 
arose  only  out  of  the  varied  fortunes  of  their  votaries. 
Therefore  what  we  have  to  say  of  the  birth  of  the  tutelary 
goddess  of  Athens,  of  her  first  issue  from  the  phenomena 
out  of  which  she  was  formed,  and  the  earliest  pages  of  her 
history,  may  apply  in  great  measure  to  Artemis  as  well. 

I  have  said  that  at  first  there  may  be  as  many  Trito- 
geneias  as  there  are  separate  pieces  of  water  to  give  them 
birth.  Pallas- Athene,  j]  TrapOsvos,  was  once  the  special 
maiden  goddess  of  Athens,  sprung  from  the  water  which 
watered  Athens  :  no  more  than  this.  Or,  if  more  than 
this,  she  was  at  all  events  the  goddess  of  only  one  section 


1  Athene's  relationship  to  the  moon  appears  in  many  ways.  As  a 
mariner's  goddess  she  was  confounded  with  Astarte.  She  was  also  identified 
with  the  Gorgon  (cf.  the  expression  yopywwis),  and,  whatever  Medusa  was 
at  first,  she  came  to  be  thought  of  as  the  full  moon. 


198  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  the  Greek  race.  Aphrodite  was  the  water  deity  of 
another  section — of  the  Cypriotes,  for  example,  and  those 
Greeks  who  came  most  under  the  influence  of  Asiatic 
thought.  Artemis  filled  the  same  place  with  a  third 
division — the  shepherd  races  of  the  inland.  Athene  stood, 
in  a  fashion,  between  the  two  ;  she  was  more  Asiatic  than 
Artemis,  more  Greek  than  Aphrodite.  So  she  was  de- 
stined to  lord  it  over  all  her  compeers.  One  of  the  Trito- 
geneias  must  inevitably  have  risen  to  pre-eminence,  and 
have  thrust  the  others  into  the  shade.  When  this  event 
did  happen,  Aphrodite  became  the  goddess  of  an  abstrac- 
tion— Love.  Artemis  became  the  moon. 

Gods  and  goddesses  who  once  ruled  over  much  greater 
phenomena  often  seem  to  find  a  last  refuge  in  one  or  other 
of  the  heavenly  bodies.  Even  Jupiter  lived  to  be  con- 
founded with  a  star.  Astarte,  who  was  originally  (I  sus- 
pect) an  earth  goddess,  came  to  be,  like  Artemis,  identified 
with  the  moon.  The  great  Mitra  and  Vanma,  of  whom 
we  spoke  in  the  last  chapter,  descended  first  to  become 
the  Asvin  of  Yedic  mythology,  and  then  descended  further, 
to  be  in  the  persons  of  the  Dioscuri  confounded  with  the 
morning  and  evening  stars.  But  to  return  to  Athene  and 
her  history. 

This  goddess  succeeded  in  absorbing  in  herself  the 
highest  parts  of  the  characters  of  Artemis  and  Aphrodite. 
She  also  in  a  certain  measure  subdued  Hera  to  follow  her 
nature.  It  has  been  said  that  Hera  was  more  a  goddess 
of  heaven  than  of  earth.  But  she  was  this,  not  in  virtue 
of  her  own  nature,  but  of  her  being  the  wife  of  Zeus. 
And  in  leaving  her  rightful  element,  she  left  behind  her 
some  of  her  individual  character.  Hera  had  not  the  same 
rights  in  the  heavenly  regions  which  Athene  possessed. 
When  we  see  Hera  and  Athene  acting  in  concert,  as  we 
do  throughout  the  Iliad,  we  must  regard  Athene  as  being 
actually,  if  not  in  name,  the  leader.  Hera's  being  is 
merged  in  Athene's :  she  forgets  that  she  is  a  wife ;  she 
acts  of  her  own  will  and  not  in  proper  obedience  to  her 


HYMN  TO  ATH£N£.  199 

husband.  Hera  is  a  cloud  when  she  and  Pallas  come 
flying  down  to  the  Grecian  ranks  side  by  side  like  two 
doves  sailing  through  the  air.  She  is  a  heaven  goddess 
when  she  steals  the  thunders  of  Zeus.  But  Athene  does 
not  need  to  steal  from  Zeus ;  she  wears  the  aegis  by  right ; 
and  the  segis  is  the  thunder  cloud. 

Zeus,  from  being  the  heaven,  became  the  stormy  sky 
and  even  the  cloud;  Athene,  in  a  contrary  way,  being 
first  the  cloud,  was  refined  as  time  went  on  into  the  air 
and  into  the  sky.  She  came  eventually  to  be  the  Queen 
of  the  Air :  but  we  must  not  so  think  of  her  at  first.  She 
was  originally  a  stormy  goddess ;  and  when  not  the  cloud 
itself,  then  the  wind  or  the  thunder  storm,  which  are 
born  of  the  cloud.  To  her  and  to  Zeus  alone  did  the 
aegis  belong  by  right :  each,  it  would  seem,  had  their  own 
aegis,  that  terrible  corselet  fringed  with  Horror  and  girt 
about  with  Fear,  whose  true  nature  is  not  difficult  to 
divine.1  The  origin  of  the  cloud  in  the  water  is  soon  for- 
gotten, and  so  was  the  first  birth  of  Athene.  To  Homer 
— the  epic  Homer — she  was  only  Tritogeneia,  daughter  of 
Triton.  But  to  the  author  of  the  Homeric  hymn  and  to 
all  later  mythologists  Athene  had  another  and  a  higher 
parentage :  she  was  born  again  to  be  the  daughter  of  Zeus. 
The  story  of  this  Athene's  second  birth  (it  is  really  a 
second  birth  and  like  that  of  Agni  from  the  wood,  only 
she  ascends  from  earth  to  heaven  and  he  comes  down 
from  heaven  to  earth)  is  that  which  became  so  favourite 
a  subject  for  vase  paintings  and  sculpture,  and  which  is  in 
the  hymn  thus  told  :-- 

'  I  begin  my  song  to  Pallas-Athene,  the  glorious  grey- 
eyed  goddess,  wise  in  counsel,  having  an  untender  heart, 
the  revered  virgin,  our  city  ward  and  mighty;  Tritogeneia; 


1  'And  about  her  shoulders  she  threw  the  aegis  fringed  with  Horror, 
which  Fear  rings  round  ;  thereon  was  Strife,  and  Might  and  chilling  Rout ' 
(/Z.  v.  738  sq.)  And  again,  in  II.  xv.  229,  alylSa,  Owvavfaffffav.  The  fringe  is 
the  lightning  which  issues  from  the  cloud. 


200  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

whom  counselled  Zeus  alone  brought  forth  from  his  re- 
verend head,  clothed  in  her  warlike  golden  panoply,  shining 
on  every  side.  And  awe  possessed  all  the  immortals  who 
saw  this  thing.  But  she  quickly  leapt  from  the  immortal 
front  of  aegis-bearing  Zeus,  shaking  her  bitter  spear,  and 
great  Olympus  quaked  in  fear  before  the  wrath  of  the 
grey-eyed  one.  And  round  the  earth  a  horrid  sound  re- 
sounded, and  the  sea  was  stirred  and  tossed  its  purple 
water.  Then  suddenly  the  salt  wave  stood  still,  and  Hy- 
perion's glorious  son  (the  sun)  stayed  long  the  going  of 
his  swift-foot  steeds  until  the  maid  (KovpTj)  took  from  her 
immortal  shoulders  that  godlike  armour ;  and  counselled 
Zeus  rejoiced ! ' 

6  Having  an  untender  heart ; '  and  why  ?  What  is 
this  wrath  of  the  grey-eyed  goddess  which  all  fear?  It  is 
the  rage  of  the  storm.  The  very  word  used  here  (ftpi^r)) 
is  expressive  of  the  grinding  thunder.  It  means  literally 
not  so  much  the  mere  emotion  of  anger  as  the  outward 
expression  of  it,  such  as  snorting.  Athene  is  cruel 
because  the  lightning  is  cruel,  grey-eyed  because  the 
cloud  is  grey.  She  has  been  the  river  and  the  river  mist ; 
but  that  is  forgotten.  What  she  seems  now  is  the  storm 
cloud  begot  in  the  heavens — in  the  head  of  Zeus.  Her 
golden  panoply  is  the  storm  all  armed  and  ready  with  the 
flash.  For  see  how  the  old  nature  meaning  of  the  myth 
peeps  out  under  its  thin  disguise.  Dread  possessed  all  the 
immortals  when  she  '  leapt  forth  in  a  moment ' — as  the 
lightning  leaps  from  heaven — brandishing  a  sharp  spear ; 
and  great  Olympus  shook  before  her  snorting.  The  storm, 
we  see,  had  begun.  'And  all  about  the  earth  a  horrid 
din  went  round.  .  .  .' 

Presently  we  pass  to  another  image  closely  allied  to 
these  images,  but  somewhat  different  from  them.  Just 
now  Athene  was  the  storm  itself,  almost  the  lightning 
itself,  when  she  leapt  forth  from  heaven.  But  change  the 
image  a  little ;  let  her  be  simply  the  cloud  ;  then  her  arms 


THE  STOKM.  201 

are  the  thunder  and  the  lightning.  The  Vedic  Maruts 
have  the  same  panoply.  *  They  put  011  golden  armour ; 
their  spears  send  down  sparks.  They  lift  the  mountains ; 
the  forest  trees  shake  before  them.'  When  the  lightning 
has  gone  forth  and  the  thunder  rolled,  then  Athene,  the 
cloud,  has  laid  aside  her  weapons.  Who  does  not  know  the 
stillness  with  which  nature  awaits  that  moment  of  flash 
and  crash  ?  Here  it  is  recorded  how  the  salt  wave  stood  still 
and  the  glorious  sun  stayed  the  going  of  his  steeds,  until 
the  maid  put  from  her  shoulders  that  immortal  panoply : 
and  counselled  Zeus  rejoiced— the  sky  itself  grew  clear. 

It  is  in  her  aspect  as  a  grim  storm  goddess  that  Athene 
first  appears  to  us  in  Greek  poetry.  It  is  in  virtue  of  this 
fighting  power  that  she  is  troXids,  city  guardian.  We  see 
that  well  enough  by  the  epithets  which  follow  one  another 
in  the  hymn.  •  Athene  is  '  untender-hearted '  (a^uXi^ov 
r)Top  s^ovcra),  and  therefore  'revered '  (alBoirj ) ;  and  because 
she  was  so  dread  and  so  revered  she  was  the  best  of 
guardians  for  the  city.  Wherefore  it  was  that  the  oldest 
temple  to  Athene  at  Athens  was  the  temple  of  Athene 
Polias,  and  therefore  was  it  that  she  was  worshipped  in  so 
many  towns  under  that  name. 

There  is  so  much  likeness  between  the  natures  of  Zeus 
and  Athene,  both  being  at  one  time  personifications  of  the 
sky  and  at  another  time  personifications  of  the  storm, 
that  it  need  not  surprise  us  to  find  that  the  epithet 
iro\i£vs  belonged  especially  to  Zeus.  But  we  do  not  appre- 
ciate the  full  force  of  such  a  phrase  as  applied  either  to 
father  or  daughter,  if  we  only  think  of  the  polis  of 
historic  days.  Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  think  of  pre- 
historic times — that  is  to  say,  of  days  when  Zeus  and 
Athene  partook  much  more  of  the  elemental  nature  from 
which  they  had  sprung,  than  they  ever  seem  to  do  in 
literature.  In  such  days  the  TroTus-  was  not  the  ordered 
city,  the  centre  of  a  busy  life,  suggestive  only  of  the  '  sweet 
security  of  streets,'  and  remote  from  fear  of  the  unseen 
power  of  the  storm.  It  was,  on  the  contrary,  a  little 


202  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

palisaded  village,  situate  in  a  wild  country,  surrounded  by 
lonely  tracts  of  forest  and  of  marsh.  Each  village  was  a 
tribe  and  a  nation  to  itself;  and  there  was  war  slumbering 
or  awake  between  each  community  and  its  neighbour. 
Over  the  wild  region  which  surrounded  this  little  oasis 
of  human  life  presided  the  God  of  Storms.  If  he  was 
friendly  to  the  village,  if  he  was  a  true  city-ward  to  it, 
then  he  howled  with  destructive  vengeance  round  the 
tribe  which  was  coming  to  its  attack.  This  was  the 
ancient  character  of  the  Zsvs  nroKisvs.  When  we  come  to 
study  the  beliefs  of  the  German  races,  we  shall  find  in 
their  social  condition  a  better  example  of  the  community 
which  I  have  been  imagining,  descended  from  the  village 
community  of  old  Aryan  days.  We  shall  see  how  among 
the  Germans  each  collection  of  houses  cut  itself  off  from 
neighbouring  villages  by  a  mar k  or  forest*  track,  and  how 
this  mark  was  ever  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  the 
God  of  Storms. 

It  seems  strange  that  Athene  and  Zeus  should  have 
remained  such  distinct  individualities,  and  yet  that  there 
should  have  been  really  so  little  distinctive  in  their  two 
natures.  If  we  compare  either  their  possessions  and  attri- 
butes, or  their  most  characteristic  deeds,  we  shall  see  that 
very  many  of  these  are  partaken  of  by  both.  There  often 
is  no  clear  distinction  between  Zeus  and  Athene.  She 
is  then  little  else  than  the  feminine  counterpart  of  her 
father.  As  we  have  seen,  each  was  essentially  a  city 
guardian ;  and  Athene  alone  beside  her  father  possessed 
the  segis  and  wielded  the  thunder.1  There  is  something 
very  appropriate  in  the  way  that  in  Homer  the  goddess 
and  the  god  are  made  to  take  opposite  sides  in  the  Great 
Siege.  The  storm  may  well  have  seemed  to  range  itself 
now  with  one  camp,  now  with  another.  The  thunder 
might  come  from  Ida,  and  then  it  was  sent  by  Zeus ; 2  or 

1  In  II.  ii.  447  Athene  is  shown  as  possessing  an  aegis  of  her  own ;  in 
v.  733,  &c.,  she  borrows  that  of  her  father ;  in  xi.  45  Athene  and  Hera 
together  thunder.  2  Cf.  viii.  170;  xvii.  593. 


THE  GODDESS  OF  WISDOM.  203 

it  might  come  from  the  west,  whitening  the  waves  of  the 
sea,  and  then  it  was  Athene  and  Hera  flying  together  from 
Olympus.  But  in  the  double  natures  of  both  Zeus  and 
Athene  there  is  full  scope  for  a  difference  in  their  outward 
appearance.  Zeus  is  not  only  the  stormy  sky  ;  he  is  like- 
wise, and  more  rightfully,  the  clear  heaven.  He  may  be 
a  passionate  and  changeful  being,  or  he  may  be  the  all- 
knowing,  the  wise  counsellor,  the  just  judge. 

Such  changes  as  these  belong  partly  to  the  change  of 
Athene's  natural  character,  partly  to  the  development  of 
her  ethical  nature.  They  can  be  observed  passing  over 
the  goddess  of  Homer,  and  they  become  more  noticeable 
when  we  pass  on  to  poets  later  than  Homer.  In  the 
Iliad  the  goddess  appears  essentially  as  the  fighter,  'A  #771/77 
Trpo/Aa^oy,1  a  character  which  is,  as  we  have  seen,  inti- 
mately connected  with  her  old  name  of  Athene  Polias. 
In  the  Odyssey  another  side  of  her  nature  becomes  con- 
spicuous. She  is  there  the  wise  counsellor  (7ro\v/3ov\os, 
7ro\vfjLr)Tis)y  and  a  divinity.  appropriately  adored  by  the 
cunning  seafarers  and  merchants  for  whom  the  Odyssey 
was  written. 

I  will  not  say,  however,  that  this  side  of  Athene's 
character,  '  the  wise  one,'  was  not  of  very  ancient  origin, 
and  has  not  as  much  as  her  fierce,  stormy  character  its 
origin  in  the  phenomenon  from  which  she  grew.  Nay,  in 
some  respects  it  even  seems  to  have  the  oldest  birth.  We 
have  seen  how  Athene  was  first  of  all  water-born,  whereby 
she  was  called  TpiToyevsia,  irowria,  6a\daa-ia,  sv7r\oia.  She 
was  also  a  daughter  of  Metis,  who  was  in  later  times 
'  Counsel'  (an  abstraction),  but  in  her  earlier  days  a  water 
nymph,  a  daughter  of  ocean.2  This  birth  from  Metis  had 
a  certain  connection  with  the  epithet  TroXv/jLrjns  ;  and  it  is 


1  Athene  is  not  called  PromacJios  in  the  Iliad,  but  that  word  more  than 
any  other  expresses  her  character  there.    Compare  especially  Iliad,  iv.  43(J, 
where  Athene  is  coupled  with  Ares  and  with  Deimos,  Phobos,  and  Eris  ; 
v.  29,  where  she  is  again  in  special  opposition  to  Ares  ;  v.  333,  where  her 
name  is  coupled  with  that  of  Enyo. 

2  Preller,  Griech.  Myth.  i.  160. 


204  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

not  difficult  to  show  what  that  connection  was.  Metis  was 
an  Oceanic!.  The  Oceanids  were  not  the  waves,  but  the 
rivers.  And  rivers  have  always  been  associated  with  pro- 
phecy. Every  mythology  has  its  wise  women,  who  are 
the  guardians  of  a  fountain  or  stream.  In  the  Eddas 
such  beings  are  to  be  seen  in  the  '  weird  sisters  three ' 
who  keep  the  well  of  Urd,  which  stands  under  Yggdrasill. 
Originally  these  three  maidens  were  themselves  personifi- 
cations of  wells  or  streams.  The  Pythoness  was  the  water 
of  Delphi,  and  was  one  with  the  nymph  Telphusa ;  later 
on  she  was  the  wise  maiden  of  the  sacred  stream.  The 
wells  of  knowledge  or  of  magic,  or  the  fountains  of  youth 
which  we  meet  with  in  myth  and  legend,  are  no  more 
than  the  narrowing  to  particular  instances  of  the  magic 
and  sacredness  and  healing  gifts  which  were  once  uni- 
versally attributed  to  streams.  And  it  so  happens  that  of 
the  many  kinds  of  supernatural  power  which  these  as 
fetiches  once  possessed,  their  knowledge  and  cunning  re- 
mained with  them  the  longest.  Wherefore  the  serpent, 
which  is  in  every  mythology  symbolical  of  the  river,  is 
everywhere  held  to  be  e  more  subtle  than  any  beast  of  the 
field.'  It  is  not  difficult,  then,  to  see  whence  Athene 
draws  her  cunning  and  wisdom. 

By  the  process  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  this  was 
the  part  of  the  goddess'  nature  which  lived  the  longest ; 
because,  as  men  advance  in  civilisation,  they  set  more 
value  upon  intellectual  gifts  and  less  value  upon  mere 
animal  courage  and  capacity  for  fighting.  Hence  the 
very  noticeable  change  which,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
has  passed  over  the  character  of  Athene  when  we  turn 
from  the  Iliad  to  the  Odyssey. 

An  important  deed  of  Pallas  beside  those  which  she  is 
made  to  perform  in  Homer,  was  the  help  which  she  gave 
to  Perseus  in  his  expedition  against  the  Gorgons.  Besides 
the  aegis,  Athene  possessed  the  shield  into  which  Medusa's 
head  had  been  fixed,  and  which  was  hence  called  the  gor- 
goneion.  The  adventure  of  Perseus  is  most  evidently  a  pure 


MEDUSA.  205 

nature  myth,  and  the  gorgoneion  jnust  therefore  belong 
to  Athene  in  her  nature  character.  Concerning  Perseus 
there  is  no  doubt.  He  is  the  sun,  the  hero  who,  like 
Surya,  'wanders  up  and  down  upon  his  path,'1  veiling 
himself  in  things  alike  and  unlike  (i.e.  hiding  his  form 
in  the  petasos  of  Hermes).  We  have  first  to  note  him  on 
his  western  journey,  how  by  the  fitful  winds  he  was  borne 
through  endless  space,  and  from  the  lofty  sky  looked  down, 
on  the  far-removed  earth,  and  sped  over  all  the  world ; 
how  he  saw  Arcturus  cold  and  the  claws  of  Cancer,  and  was 
carried  now  to  the  east,  now  to  the  west.  And  then,  fol- 
lowing him  on  his  journey,  we  may  see  him  at  day's 
decline  staying  on  the  borders  of  Atlas'  kingdom,  upon 
the  edge  of  earth,  where  the  sea  is  ever  ready  to  receive 
the  panting  horses  of  the  Sun  and  his  wearied  car.2  Here 
Perseus  is  not  the  sun  seen  as  the  god  who  travels  upon 
right  ond  changeless  paths,  but  as  the  sun  hero  who  is 
essentially  a  wanderer.  The  Medusa  head,  as  we  see  it 
in  early  art,  presents  a  hideous  face,  with  the  tongue 
lolling  out  and  sharp  teeth  agrin.  It  is,  in  fact,  the 
strange  misshapen  waning  moon,  which  before  dawn  we 
may  see  hanging  over  the  western  horizon.  Soon  the 
rising  sun  will  strike  it  dead.  Medusa  herself  is  a  kind 
of  goddess  of  death,  the  queen  of  that  western  world  of 
shades.  As  art  advanced,  she  grew  milder,  until  she 
became  like  Hypnos,  a  soft  embodiment  of  rest.  But 
she  was  Death  for  all  that. 

Some  have  supposed,  however,  that  the  Gorgon  was 
not  originally  the  moon,  but  the  storm,  and  to  this  notion 
her  connec  tion  with  Athene  gives  some  colour.  For  the 
truth  is,  Athene  and  Medusa  are  one  and  the  same  being 
seen  under  different  aspects.  Athene  herself  is  called 
gorgon-faced  (yopy&Tris),3  and  I  have  little  doubt  that  she 

1  Rig  Veda,  *.  177,  3.  2  Cf.  Met.  iv.  622  sqq. 

8  Topy&iris  or  yopywir6s  is  of  course  a  general  synonym  for  fierce-looking, 
and  as  such  is  applied  to  Hector— "E/crwp  .  .  .  Topyovs  6/j.fj.aT'  exwj/  (^.  viii. 
348,  9).  But  as  a  special  epithet  of  Athene  it  has  a  deeper  meaning  than 
'fierce'  only. 


206  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

was  once  represented  by  a  face  not  unlike  that  archaic 
gorgon  one.  Such  an  instance  of  absorption  by  a  divinity 
of  his  or  her  earlier  being  is  very  common  in  the  history 
of  mythology.  The  Gorgon  must,  then,  have  been  at  first 
the  storm,  and  afterwards  the  waning  moon.  The  battle 
of  the  sun  god  and  the  cloud  is  universal ;  and  this  may 
have  been  the  first  meaning  of  Perseus'  slaying  Medusa. 
Afterwards  a  more  fanciful  mythology  would  convert  it 
into  the  death  of  the  moon. 

Athene's  being  the  daughter  of  the  cloud  and  also  of 
the  water — to  inland  men  of  the  river,  but  to  those  by 
the  coast  of  the  sea — gave  her  a  peculiar  connection  with 
navigation,  and  made  her  the  special  patroness  of  those 
among  the  Greek  nationality  who  first  practised  such  an 
art.  There  was  an  additional  reason  for  her  becoming  the 
goddess  of  sailors,  and  that  was  a  certain  amount  of 
confusion  between  her  and  the  Phoenician  Astarte.  To 
inland  men  she — or  I  would  rather  say  the  maiden 
goddess,  the  Parthenos,  the  Pallax — came  to  be  represented 
by  Artemis  ;  to  those  who  were  most  orientalised  she  was 
merged  in  Astarte  or  Aphrodite ;  while  to  the  intermediate 
class  she  kept  her  proper  individuality. 

Now  this  intermediate  class  was  formed  of  precisely 
the  men  who  made  Hellas  what  it  was.  They  were  the 
Javan,  the  lonians,  the  dwellers  by  the  sea  of  either  coast, 
the  adventurers,  the  merchants,  the  lovers  of  art.  Where- 
fore Athene  became  patron  of  all  these  pursuits.  She 
was  the  sea  goddess  of  the  newer  men,  in  opposition  to 
Poseidon,  who  was  the  sea  god  of  the  Pelasgians.  Whence 
the  contest  between  them. 

These  I  take  to  be  the  chief  constituents  which  go  to 
make  up  the  character  of  the  water-born  goddess.  Some 
essential  features  of  this  character  are  to  be  traced  all 
through  the  history  of  Athene  worship,  until  (shall  we 
say)  she  reappears  in  neo-Platonist  and  Christian  mytho- 
logy as  the  Divine  Sophia  or  as  the  Yirgin  herself.  But 
of  course  Athene's  ethic  being  tends  continually  to  dim 


THE  SEA  GODDESS.  207 

her  natural  being.  We  shall  do  well  to  adhere  generally 
to  the  rule  laid  down  that  we  ought  to  seek  in  Homer 
alone  for  anything  like  a  nature  god  or  goddess ;  where- 
fore, in  concluding  this  sketch  of  Athene,  we  will  turn 
back  again  to  recapitulate  in  a  few  words  the  leading 
features  of  her  character  as  that  is  portrayed  in  the  Iliad 
and  in  the  Odyssey. 

We  have  first  to  remember  that  Athene  is  always  Trito- 
geneia  here,  and  we  must  therefore  think  of  her  always  as 
the  cloud  in  some  form.  In  the  Iliad  she  is  the  storm 
cloud  especially.  Zeus  thunders  from  Ida1 — that  is,  from 
the  Troy  side — and  his  seat  is  there ; 2  while  that  of  the 
rest  of  the  gods  is  on  the  European  side — namely,  upon 
Olympus.3  Thus  Zeus  becomes  an  image  of  the  storm 
which  from  landward  bears  against  the  Greeks.  Apollo 
(the  sun),  too,  came  from  the  east,  and  so  he  seemed  to 
be  ranged  upon  the  side  of  the  Dardanians.  Apollo  came 
from  Pergamos  to  oppose  Athene  coming  from  Olympus ; 
but  when  the  sun  had  sloped  toward  the  west,  Apollo's 
power  to  help  his  allies  failed  him.  '  So  long,  then,  as 
the  sun  was  climbing  to  mid-heaven  the  weapons  reached 
both  sides  with  equal  power,  and  the  people  fell ;  but  when 
the  sun  had  passed  on  towards  eventide,  then  were  the 
Greeks  the  mightier  in  despite  of  fate.' 4 

And  now  for  the  Greek  befriending  deities.5  Athene 
is  meant  to  be  the  chief  and  leader  of  these.  Hera  seems 
sometimes  the  leader,  for  this  is  suitable  to  her  place  as 
Queen  of  Heaven ;  but  her  genius  is  really  overpowered — 


1  viii.  170;  xvii.  593.  2  viii.  397,  &c.  3  viii.  438,  &c. 

4  H.  xvi.  777,  &c.     The  morning  is  more  taken  account  of  than  the 
evening.     This  is  perhaps  why  both  Apollo  and  Ares  seem  on  the  side  of 
the  Easterns.     The  sun  was  really  so  till  midday.     The  other  deities  who 
side  with  the  Trojans  are  Artemis  and  Lcto  (who  go  with  brother  and 
son) ;  Xanthus,  a  local  river  god  ;  and  Aphrodite",  of  Eastern  origin. 

5  The  divinities  who  side  with  the  Greeks,  the  Westerns  and  the  in- 
vaders, are  Hera   (only  because  her  nature  is  overpowered  by  Athene's), 
the  two  rulers  of  the  sea,  Athene  and  Poseidon  (one  as  the  storm,  the 
wind,  or  cloud,  the  other  as  the  sea  itself),  Hermes  (god  of  the  West  and 
of  Death ;  see  Ob.  VI.),  and  Hephaestus.     See  book  xx. 


208  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

*  rebuked,  as  it  is  said  Marc  Antony's  was  by  Caesar  ' — bj 
the  genius  of  Athene.  We  see  this  the  more  plainly  when 
we  have  followed  the  history  of  the  goddesses  into  the 
second  epic  ;  for  there  we  find  that  Hera  has  sunk  to  in- 
significance, while  Athene  retains  all  her  ancient  power 
with  something  added.  Even  in  the  Iliad  Athene  some- 
times orders  and  Hera  obeys ; l  and  this  seems  a  very  re- 
markable thing  when  we  remember  the  difference  of  their 
nominal  positions  and  the  actual  difference  of  a  generation 
between  them.  Generally  Hera  and  Athene  go  side  by 
side,  flying  together,2  or  driving  side  by  side  in  the  chariot.3 
Wherefore  we  may  take  them  for  two  embodiments  of  the 
storm  or  the  storm  cloud  coming  ( in  speed  like  doves '  to 
meet  Zeus,  who  conies  up  from  the  other  side,  whitening 
the  .ZEgsean  as  they  pass  over  it.  It  has  been  already 
noted  how  both  Athene  and  Hera  can  wield  the  thunder. 

Before  we  leave  Athene's  character  in  the  Iliad  we 
must  notice  the  epithets  which  attach  to  her.  Tritogeneia 
has  been  spoken  of;  Polybulos  (7ro\vftov\o$)  is  the  same 
as  Poly  metis  (TroXu/^Tts-),  and  belongs  of  right  to  this 
river-born  goddess.  Agelia  (a«/e\evrj)  she  is  frequently 
named,  a  word  of  doubtful  significance  which  may  be  ren- 
dered 'forager'  or  'shepherdess'  (aye\rj)9  both  epithets 
connecting  Athene  with  Artemis ;  but  the  second  probably 
the  original  one.  In  this  case  the  clouds  may  be  the 
sheep,  and  Athene  may  be  likened  to  the  wind.  Gorgopis 

1  viii.  381. 

2  v.  778.     Athen£  often  takes    the   form  of  a  bird  (especially  of  a 
•swallow).     Moreover,  the   winged   sandals    (TreStXa),    which   characterise 
Hermes  in  sculpture,  are  Athene's  property  as  well.     Now,  Hermes  is  the 
wind   (see  Ch.  VI.)     As  Athene  has  the  ireStKa,  so  has  Freyja,  the  chief 
among  the  Valkyriur   (see  Ch.  VII.),  a  feather  robe  (fiatSrhamr).     The 
Valkyriur  correspond  to  Athene  in  nature. 

Next  to  the  wind  the  sun  may  be  presented  in  the  form  of  a  bird.  He 
is  addressed  as  one  in  the  Rig  Veda.  On  II.  vii.  57  Heyne  comments, 
'  Ridiculum  hoc,  si  Minerva  et  Apollo  in  vultures  mutantur  aut  vulturum 
speciem  assumunt.  Comparatio  spectat  ad  hoc  solum,  quod  in  arbore  consi- 
dunt  et  pugnam  inde  prospectant '  (vol.  v.  p.  318).  Heyne,  however,  did 
not  suspect  the  nature  origin  of  these  divinities.  See  Zeitsch.  f.  verg.  Sp, 
xv.  (1866),  88  sqq.  s  viii.  1  c. 


ATH£N£  AND  POSEIDON.  209 

,  fierce-eyed,  may  also  be  rendered  Gorgon- 
faced,  and  affords  in  either  signification  good  reason  for 
supposing  that  Athene  and  the  Gorgon  were  once  the 
same. 

Now  we  pass  on  to  the  Odyssey,  where  Athene  reigns 
almost  supreme.  Odysseus  is,  in  the  language  of  the 
German  legends,  Athene's  Lielliny ;  his  failures  and 
successes  typify  the  fortunes  of  Athene's  special  votaries. 
And  who  are  these  ?  They  are  the  merchant  pirates,  the 
sea  rovers,  the  discoverers,  the  Greek  Hawkinses  and 
Drakes,  whose  time  of  power  succeeded  to  the  older  aris- 
tocratic days  commemorated  in  the  Iliad.  The  poet  of  the 
Iliad  sang  to  the  rich  and  powerful  princes  of  the  .ZEgsean 
shores  ;  the  poet  of  the  Odyssey,  too,  sang  in  coast  towns 
of  the  JSgsean,1  but  no  longer  to  petty  kings,  rather  to  the 
merchantmen  and  the  loungers  in  the  market.  Of  these 
cunning  '  many-de viced '  traders  Athene  is  the  patron 
saint.  The  worship  of  her  is  so  fervent  that  it  admits  no 
rivalry  in  her  own  domain,  and  therefore  she  has  driven 
to  the  background  the  older  god  of  the  sea.  Athene  and 
Poseidon  had  been  friendly  in  the  Iliad ;  in  the  Odyssey 
they  are  constantly  opposed.  And  because  Odysseus  puts 
out  the  eye  of  the  Cyclops,  who  is  Poseidon's  son,  and  yet 
eventually  escapes  the  vengeance  of  the  Sea  God,  Athene 
must  be  held  to  triumph  in  the  end. 

'  Once,'  says  the  author  of  the  '  Imitation,' '  the  children 
of  Israel  said  to  Moses,  Speak  thou  to  us,  and  we  will  hear 
thee.  But  let  not  the  Lord  speak  unto  us,  lest  we  die.  This, 
O  Lord,  is  not  my  prayer,  but  with  humility  and  with 
fervour  I  say  to  Thee,  as  Samuel  the  Prophet  says,  Speak, 
Lord,  for  Thy  servant  heareth.'  The  awfulness  which 
enwrapped  the  God  of  the  Jews  disappeared  in  the  milder 
nature  of  Christ.  The  greatness  of  a  prophetic  mission 
is  no  longer  needed  to  gain  a  hearing  of  the  Deity ;  and 

1  He  is  quite  ignorant  of  the  geography  of  Ithaca,  and  indeed  of  all 
coasts  beyond  Cape  Matapau.  See  Bunbury's  Geography  of  the  Ancients. 

P 


210  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  voice  of  the  Lord  is  now  still  and  small  and  uttered  in 
the  human  breast,  not  amid  the  thunders  of  Sinai.  This 
characterises  the  change  from  the  older  to  the  newer 
creed;  something  of  the  same  kind  was  the  revolution 
which  the  worship  of  Apollo  and  of  Athene  brought  about 
in  the  religion  of  Greece.  It  was  in  this  case,  as  in 
the  other,  a  meeting-point  between  God  and  humanity; 
and  though  there  is  little  moral  resemblance  between 
Christianity  and  the  religion  of  Hellas,  yet  there  was 
in  this  particular  matter  a  likeness  in  the  development  of 
each. 

The  belief  of  Christianity  is  a  belief  in  the  beauty  of 
'  holiness  ;  the  creed  of  Hellas  was  a  belief  in  the  beauty  of 
the  world  and  of  mankind.  Nature  was  no  longer  terrible 
to  those  who  had  grown  to  understand  her  better.  They 
were  not  only  in  a  new  nature,  but  they  looked  upon  nature 
with  new  eyes.  Once  Zeus  had  embodied  all  that  seemed 
most  impressive  in  the  world  around — the  dark  rugged 
land,  the  storm  heard  in  the  forests,  and  the  sea  raging 
against  the  shore.  And  he  was  in  himself  the  soul  of  such 
scenes.  To  him  might  have  been  addressed  the  words  of 
Patroclus  to  Achilles — 

Grey  ocean  bore  thee,  and  the  lofty  rocks;  for  cruel  are  thy 
thoughts. 

But  when  Apollo  and  Athene  had  taken  their  place 
beside  Zeus,  men  saw  the  sun  rise  in  a  milder  majesty,  and 
the  airs  grew  calmer,  and  the  hills  were  clothed  with 
purple  brightness.  From  the  bare  mountains  of  Thrace, 
from  windy  heights  and  perilous  seas,  the  Greeks  had  passed 
to  the  .ZEgsean,  to  its  safe  harbours  and  its  thousand  laugh-, 
ing  islands  ;  they  had  exchanged  the  lonely  life  of  shepherds 
for  the  security  of  streets,  for  commerce,  and  for  luxury. 
Apollo  was  a  lover  of  nature,  but  not  in  her  most  terrible 
aspects  ;  '  the  high  watches  pleased  him  and  the  far-reach- 
ing mountain-tops,  and  the  rivers  that  run  into  the  deep, 
and  the  shores  stretching  dmvn  to  the  sea,  and  the  sea's 


APOLLO  AND  ATHENE  THE  MEDIATORS.  211 

harbours.'  l  Wherever  on  the  Asiatic  coast  some  promon- 
tory extended  commanding  a  wide  horizon  there  was  sure 
to  have  stood  from  old  times  a  temple  to  the  sun  god. 
From  such  places,  from  those  high  watches,  men  saw  him 
as  he  rose,  and  prayed  to  him  when  he  sank  into  the 
waters.  He  went,  they  deemed,  to  an  unseen  divine  land 
whither  the  dead  heroes  had  gone  before.  And  before  he 
quite  descended  he  seemed  to  stand  as  a  messenger  between 
men  and  that  future  world.  It  was  not  so  much  the  far- 
off  heaven  of  the  gods  to  which  he  was  going,  as  to  the 
happy  land  of  the  blessed  set  apart  for  mortals ;  and  the 
two  worlds  between  which  he  stood  were  both  human 
habitations,  though  one  was  the  world  of  the  living  and 
the  other  of  the  dead.  Therefore  Apollo  was  always  the 
friend  of  man  and  accessible  to  human  prayer. 

Hear  me,  O  King,  who  art  somewhere  in  the  rich  realm  of 
Lycia  or  of  Troy  ;  for  everywhere  canst  thou  hear  a  man  in 
sorrow,  such  as  my  sorrow  is.2 

The  rare  capacity  for  art,  which  was  the  inheritance  of 
the  Greek  race,  must  soon  have  lightened  its  first  fear 
of  nature,  both  in  making -the  latter  more  familiar  and 
in  raising  man  in  his  own  eyes  by  showing  him  himself 
able  in  a  way  to  fashion  nature,  and  therefore  possessed  of 
some  part  of  the  creative  faculty  which  belongeth  to  God. 
Athene  and  Apollo  were  not  associated  only  with  the 
beauties  which  sunlight  and  calm  air  can  give,  but  with 
those  fashioned  beauties  which  are  the  aim  of  all  artistic 
striving.  Athene  was  the  patroness  of  the  goldsmith's 
art,  of  cunning  workmanship  and  of  embroidery  down  to 
the  housewife's  skill.  All  the  arts  were  Apollo's  care ;  but 
most  of  all  music — that  is  to  say,  rhythmic  movement  of 
limbs  or  of  words  with  the  harmony  of  sound  accom- 
panying such  movement ;  for  such  the  Greek  understood 
by  his  word  music,  which  meant  for  him  the  sum  of  all 
culture.  The  Pelasgic  Zeus  had  chosen  for  his  home  the 

1  Hymn  in  Apol.  2  Prayer  of  Glaucus,  II.  xvi.  514  sqq. 

p  2 


212  OUTLINES  OF  P1UMITIVE  BELIEF. 

groves  or  the  bare  mountain-tops.  But  Apollo's  dwelling 
was  a  house  made  with  hands;  to  him  were  dedicated 
some  of  the  earliest  temples.  Apollo  gave  the  Greeks  the 
first  need  of  surpassing  the  shapeless  images  which  had 
been  sufficient  representatives  of  the  other  deities.  Among 
early  sculptures  the  statues  of  Apollo  are  by  far  the  most 
frequent ;  and  we  must  consider  the  later  images  of  other 
youthful  gods — of  Hermes,  for  example,  or  the  beardless 
Dionysus — as  no  more*  than  variations  upon  the  original 
Apollo  type. 

The  wonderful  ideal  type  of  Greek  manly  beauty  may 
thus  in  a  manner  be  ascribed  to  the  worship  of  this  sun 
god ;  the  ideal  of  womanhood,  to  the  worship  of  Athene. 
For  it  were  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  perfections 
of  Greek  sculpture  represented  the  realities  of  life.  The 
humanity  of  the  god  or  goddess  was  always  an  exalted, 
idealised  manhood. 

We  have,  then,  traced  the  history  of  these  Hellenic 
deities  through  a  series  of  changes  corresponding  to  certain 
definite  phases  of  religious  growth,  and  in  these  phases  we 
have  seen  how  a  change  of  outward  circumstances  implied 
a  parallel  change  in  ethic  and  in  inward  development. 
The  first  appearance  of  Zeus  upon  the  scene — the  Greek 
Zeus,  I  mean,  as  distinguished  from  the  Indian  Dyaus — is 
indicative  of  the  dawn  of  the  anthropomorphic  spirit, 
when  the  phenomenon  which  moves  and  acts  has  obli- 
terated that  which  was  constant.  As  yet  there  was  no  ques- 
tion of  an  ideal  man,  no  desire  for  ethic  or  for  any  moral 
law ;  all  that  was  needed  was  that  the  god  should  have 
that  one  human  quality  of  will  and  power ;  and  this  the 
Pelasgic  god  essentially  possessed.  Then  came  the  rise  of 
morality ;  the  gods  not  only  became  men,  but  they  became 
ideal  men ;  and  in  this  change  Apollo  was  the  conspicuous 
figure.  The  statues  of  Apollo  express  the  very  perfecting 
of  an  anthropomorphic  creed.  But  after  a  while  this  in 
its  turn  failed  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  men,  for  they 
required  their  divinity  to  be  something  more  than  human, 


THE  HIGHEST  IDEAL  OF  GOD. 


213 


more  even  than  the  ideal  human  nature  ;  he  must  be  an 
abstract  being,  an  idea  which  could  find  no  embodiment  in 
visible  form.  And  with  this  wish  arose  again  the  old 
supreme  god  of  the  whole  Greek  race  to  give  a  name  to 
the  abstraction.  The  Zeus  whom  JEschylus'  suppliants 
invoke  is  neither  the  Zeus  of  the  East  nor  of  the  West,  of 
grove  nor  temple  ;  he  is  not  the  god  of  Olympus  any  more 
than  of  Dodona  ;  he  is  merely  the  God,  the  King  of  kings, 
like  the  Hebrews'  Jehovah. 

'King  of  kings,  happiest  of  the  happy,  and  of  the 
perfect,  perfect  in  might,  blest  Zeus.' 

And  we  know  how  the  very  priest  of  Dodona  called 
upon  him  in  the  same  strain  : 

Ttsvs  rjv,  Ttsvs  sa-ri,  Zsvs  ea-csrai,  o>  /jieydXs  Zsv,  C0 
mighty  Zeus,  which  was  and  is  and  is  to  be.'  1 


1  See  Bausanias,  x.  12,  §  5. 


214  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 


CHAPTER  V. 

MYSTEEIES. 

THE  greater  gods  of  Greece — those  at  least  who,  in  the 
heyday  of  worship,  had  the  deepest  influence  upon 
national  belief — were  the  intrusive  gods,  the  divinities  of 
new  comers  into  the  land,  the  patrons  of  warriors  and  sea- 
faring men.  Such  gods  were  the  Olympian  Zeus  and  the 
Apollo  of  the  hardy  mountaineers  of  Tempe,  and  Athene, 
who  had  brought  the  lonians  from  Asia  to  Greece,  who 
had  shown  Greek  colonists  the  way  to  new  countries,  and 
who  taught  men  skill  in  arts  and  cunning  in  trade.  But 
behind  these  gods  stand,  half  hidden  in  shadow,  other 
deities  of  older  birth,  they  who  had  been  worshipped  in 
ancient  days  by  the  simple  and  settled  folk  of  the  same 
lands,  by  the  mere  peasant,  the  shepherd  or  the  planter. 
Such  were  Pan  or  Hermes  of  Arcadia,  Dionysus  of  Thrace 
and  Macedonia  ;  such  were  Demeter  and  Dione  and 
Themis.  The  names  of  the  beings  are  for  the  most  part 
distinctly  Aryan  ;  but  in  character  the  gods  are  pre- 
Aryan,  for  they  belong  of  equal  right  to  all  nations  whose 
lives  are  of  a  quiet  kind.  Like  gods,  if  with  different 
names,  must  from  age  to  age  have  been  worshipped  on 
the  soil  of  Greece.  If  Athene  and  Apollo  called  out  a 
greater  measure  of  enthusiasm  and  took  a  larger  share  in 
the  fostering  of  Hellenic  culture,  Pan  and  Demeter  had, 
in  humbler  fashion,  a  scarce  less  assured  sway  over  the 
hearts  of  their  votaries. 

This  is  why  in  every  land  a  mystery  hangs  about  the 
worship  of  the  gods  of  the  soil :  it  is  because  of  their 
great  antiquity.  At  a  time  when  other  creeds  are  novel 


THE  DIVINITIES  OF  THE  EARTH.  215 

theirs  is  still  antique,  and  many  strange,  dim  associations 
cling  about  that  creed  which  the  worshippers  themselves 
can  scarcely  understand.  It  Hes  nearer  than  do  other 
parts  of  the  religion  to  the  primal  fount  of  all  religion. 

It  was  said  in  a  former  chapter  that  almost  before  we 
arrive  at  any  definite  belief  among  men,  and  certainly 
before  we  reach  their  developed  mythology,  we  find  them 
giving  expression  to  their  wild  emotions  by  dances  and 
gestures  not  less  wild.  Almost  before  there  is  a  worship 
of  things  there  is  a  sort  of  worship  of  emotion ;  and  this 
gathers  especially  about  two  phases  of  strong  excitement, 
the  one  created  by  love,  the  other  by  wine.  Passion, 
mental  or  bodily,  is  the  soul  of  all  religious  excitement ; 
that  is  to  say,  it  is  the  soul  of  all  belief.  The  Veddic 
charmer  does  after  a  fashion  shadow  forth  the  religion  of 
all  mankind;  the  darweesh  and  the  fakeer  display  in  their 
strange  dances  something  which  is  older  and  more  of  the 
essence  of  human  nature  than  the  dogma  of  Islam ;  the 
Christian  Flagellant,  he  who  joined  in  a  Procession  of 
Penitents  or  in  a  Dance  of  Death,  was  the  brother  in  faith 
of  these  two,  and  had  got  back  to  a  point  where  no  differ- 
ence of  creed  could  divide.  And  just  in  "the  same  way, 
before  the  creation  of  any  formulated  myth  touching  the 
gods  of  Greece,  earlier  that  the  constitution  of  any  Olym- 
pus, must  have  come  some  ritual  observance  of  this  unre- 
strained, passionate  sort.  When  the  pantheon  was  made, 
this  emotional  worship  associated  itself  with  those  divini- 
ties in  it  who  were  of  oldest  birth — that  is  to  say,  with  the 
chthonic  ]  or  earth  gods.  In  after  times,  when  the  primal 

1  We  use  this  word  chthonic  with  some  freedom  when  we  apply  it  to 
the  first  earth  gods  of  the  Greek  pantheon.  The  chthonic  divinity  was 
essentially  a  god  of  the  regions  under  the  earth  ;  at  first  of  the  dark  home 
of  the  seed,  later  on  of  the  still  darker  home  of  the  dead.  But  at  first  an 
earth  divinity  was  not  worshipped  under  this  aspect.  It  was — and  this  is 
especially  true  of  the  earth  goddess — not  the  underground  region,  but  the 
surface  of  the  earth  that  was  worshipped.  Therefore,  when  we  speak 
of  Prithivi,  or  (Jaia,  or  Demeter,  or  Tellus,  or  Ops,  in  their  earliest  forms 
we  cannot  call  them  chthonic  divinities.  Later  on  they  become  more 
nearly  so. 


216  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

condition  had  been  passed,  the  same  rites,  unexplained  and 
mysterious,  were  reverently  preserved. 

The  earth  itself  is  a  woman :  Prithivi,  Demeter. 
Perhaps,  however,  it  is  neither  as  Prithivi  nor  Demeter 
that  we  ought  to  think  of  the  goddess  to  whom  the  first 
chthonic  rites  of  Greece  were  paid.  For  the  rituals  which 
grew  into  the  mysteries  may  have  existed  in  the  land 
before  the  coming  thither  of  Zeus  and  his  pantheon.  But 
the  older  names  are  gone  ;  we  must  needs  use  those  which 
have  been  handed  down  to  us.  In  time  Demeter  came  to 
hold  a  place  as  near  to  the  hearts  of  the  lower  orders  of 
the  population,  the  descendants  of  the  conquered  nation- 
alities, as  she  ever  held  to  the  hearts  of  their  conquerors, 
and  a  far  nearer  place  than  she  held  with  these  latter  in 
their  conquering  days.  For  it  is  only  by  a  peaceful  and 
settled  race  that  the  earth  goddess  is  ever  held  in  high 
esteem.  This  is  why  it  was  that  the  Dorians,  the  most 
warlike  among  all  the  nations  of  new  Greece,  were  ever  the 
most  hostile  to  the  cult  of  Demeter.  After  their  invasion 
of  the  Peloponnese,  the  worship  of  that  goddess  had  to 
hide  itself  in  the  rustic  retirement  of  Arcadia,  and  for  long 
years — so  Herodotus  declares1 — Arcadia  was  the  only  por- 
tion of  the  Peloponnese  where  it  was  preserved. 

There  is  in  most  creeds  an  earth  god  as  well  as  an 
earth  goddess,  though  the  former  is  the  less  important 
personality.  He  represents  rather  the  germinal  power  of 
the  ground  than  the  simple  earth,  and  he  is  therefore  less 
essential  to  primitive  belief  than  the  goddess  is.  This  is 
why  he  always  holds  an  inferior  place.  He  is  sometimes 
the  son,  sometimes  the  husband,  of  the  earth.  In  Roman, 
mythology  he  appears  as  Liber,  who  is  the  son  of  Ceres 
and  the  brother  of  Libera,  who  is  a  kind  of  second  Ceres. 
In  some  of  the  Asiatic  creeds,  to  which  we  shall- refer 
anon,  he  is  the  husband  of  the  earth  goddess,  but  he  is  also 
almost  on  a  level  with  human  nature ;  he  is  the  Adonis 

1  Herod,  ii.  171. 


THE  DIVINITIES  OF  THE  EARTH. 


217 


to  the  Cyprian  Aphrodite,  the  Anchises  to  the  Aphrodite4 
of  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  Of  Greece  proper  the  earth 
god  is  for  some  places  Dionysus,  for  others  Ploutori,  for 
others  Pan.  Dionysus  was  not,  I  suppose,  a  god  of  native 
birth,  but  became  Greek  by  adoption,  and  was  worshipped 
especially  in  the  north.  Plouton,  or  Hades-Plouton,  must 
not  be  confounded  with  that  later  Hades  the  embodiment 
of  the  tomb.  Plouton  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  son  of 
Demeter.1  In  the  Eleusinian  myth  the  same  divinity, 
Hades-Plouton,  was  her  son-in-law.  Dionysus  held  the 
same  relationship. 

Zeus  himself  had  to  take  upon  him  part  of  the  nature 
which  had  belonged  traditionally  to  this  god  of  the  soil. 
Just  as  there  was,  as  well  as  a  Zeus  Olympics,  a  Pelasgian 
Zeus  to  embody  the  worship  of  the  older  race,  so  there 
was,  as  the  representative  of  a  creed  still  earlier,  a  Zeus 
Chthonios,  or  Zeus  of  the  Earth.  Such  a  title  implies  a 
complete  reversal  of  Zeus'  character  as  the  ruler  of 
heaven.  Zeus  is  indeed  husband  of  the  earth  goddess, 
but  by  right  only  because  the  heaven  is  married  to  the 
earth.  Nevertheless,  we  notice  that  in  the  Greek  pantheon 
there  is  no  god  to  whom  the  surface  of  the  earth  is  as- 
signed for  his  special  kingdom.  In  the  division  of  the 
universe  by  lot  among  the  three  sons  of  Kronos,  to  Posei- 
don was  given  the  hoary  sea,  to  Hades  the  pitchy  darkness, 
to  Zeus  the  wide  heaven  in  the  clouds  and  air.  The  earth 
was  common  to  all  three.2  The  reason  of  this  probably  is 
that  these  three  sons  of  Kronos  are  all  later  comers  than 
the  original  earth  god. 

The  divine  beings  who  in  the  historic  ages  of  Greece 
were  the  heads  and  representatives  of  chthonian  worship 
were  Demeter  and  Persephone,  the  Great  Goddesses,  as  at 
Eleusis  they  were  called.  It  was  no  doubt  because  of  the 
high  antiquity  of  their  cult  that  to  them  belonged  in  a 

1  Demeter  was  said  to  have  brought  forth  Pluton  in  a  thrice-ploughed 
fallow  in  the  island  of  Crete. 
*  II.  xv.  187  sqq. 


218  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 


special  degree  the  title  o-zpval,  reverend,  holy  ;  tliere  was 
something  awful  and  mysterious  about  them  which  the 
other  gods  had  not.  The  god  who  was  most  associated 
with  these  in  worship  was  Dionysus,  who  was  in  historic 
days  but  the  pale  shadow  of  what  he  (or  his  predeces- 
sor) had  been  when  invested  with  their  full  character 
as  earth  gods.  Nevertheless  the  shape  which  he  took 
in  Greece  seems  to  be  one  which  the  earth  god  has 
generally  assumed  in  the  later  forms  of  the  Aryan  reli- 
gious systems.  The  association  of  three  beings  of  the 
same  kind  as  these  three  —  that  is  to  say,  a  mother,  a 
daughter,  and  a  male  divinity  who  is  husband  or  brother 
of  the  last  —  seems  generally  to  belong  to  the  scheme  of 
Aryan  earth  worship.  The  same  trilogy  appears  in  the 
Ceres,  Libera,  and  Liber  of  Rome,  and  in  the  Frigg, 
Freyja,  and  Freyr  (Freke,  Frowa,  and  Fro)  of  the  Teutons. 

More  primitive,  perhaps,  than  the  formulated  worship 
of  Demeter,  Persephone,  and  Dionysus  in  Greece  was  that 
form  of  earth  worship  whereof  we  catch  faint  glimpses  in 
the  legend  of  Pan  "and  his  rustic  compeers.  These  were 
honoured  by  country  dances  and  unelaborate  rites  —  wild 
dances  and  processions,  no  doubt,  suiting  the  tastes  and 
tempers  of  those  who  used  them,  but  not  yet  turned  into 
any  distinct  ritual.  In  the  Greece  of  historic  times  these 
early  rites  had  been  already  supplemented  by  very  defined 
ceremonies,  called  by  the  name  of  mysteries. 

The  celebrations  which  have  handed  on  their  title  for 
a  general  name  in  future  ages,  the  Greek  jjiva-r^pia.,  are, 
when  we  first  catch  sight  of  them,  great  religious  revivals, 
for  even  then  they  preserve  in  tradition  a  something  which 
has  been  half  forgotten.  They  have  already  departed  far 
from  their  original  use,  and  this  we  see  when  we  compare 
them  with  like  ceremonies  observed  among  less  cultured 
races.  We  cannot  translate  /-IUCTTT;?,  nor  any  of  its  deriva- 
tive words,  quite  into  the  primitive  sense  of  them  ;  and  our 
modern  translations,  'mystic  and  the  rest,  are  separated 
from  this  primitive  meaning  by  a  gap  which  centuries  of 


THE  MUSTERIA.  219 

religious  growth  have  made.  A  writer  upon  the  myth  of 
Demeter  and  Persephone1 — the  story  which  formed  the 
foundation  of  the  mysteries  which  were  enacted  at  Eleusis 
— computes  that  we  can  trace  its  history  for  a  thousand 
years.  No  portion  of  a  creed,  no  ceremonies  connected 
with  that  belief,  could  remain  unchanged  so  long.  For 
example,  the  element  which  we  naturally  associate  first  of 
all  with  the  idea  of  mystery  is  its  secresy,  and  yet  this 
element  the  early  mysteries  contained  only  in  a  secondary 
degree.  In  the  Eleusinia,  it  is  true,  the  pledge  to  silence 
concerning  the  holy  rites  was  strictly  exacted,  and  is  said 
to  have  been  strictly  observed ;  yet  Plato,  we  know,  com- 
plained of  the  easy  accessibility  of  the  rites  themselves, 
and  Plato  lived  in  days  when  the  motive  cause  for  secresy 
and  exclusiveness  had  been  long  in  operation. 

When  Greek  thought  had  been  aroused  to  speculation 
upon  the  origin  of  the  world,  upon  primal  existences, 
upon  the  difference  between  good  and  evil,  upon  the  cause 
of  either,  upon  a  hundred  subjects,  in  fine,  whereof  it  had 
formerly  no  conceit,  men  fancied  that  during  the  ecstasies 
of  emotion  to  which  the  mystic  rites  gave  rise  they  caught 
sight  of  a  solution  to  the  difficulties  which  oppressed  them. 
And  perhaps  not  wholly  without  reason ;  for  at  such  times 
imagination  anticipated  the  slow  steps  of  logic,  and  seized 
hold  on  new  truths  almost  without  knowing  how.  But 
these  men  chose  to  believe  further  that  the  same  truths 
had  been  revealed  to  their  ancestors  and  had  been  by  them 
obscurely  handed  down  in  an  ancient  ritual.  Tlfe  fore- 
fathers themselves  had  no  thought  of  such  depths  of  philo- 
sophy; these  were  added  in  later  times,  when  the  old 
significance  of  the  rites  had  been  obscured  or  quite  for- 
gotten. Those  which  they  instituted  were  the  natural 
expressions  of  human  emotion  ;  scarcely  more  complicated 
and  abstruse  than  the  <1  im-e  of  our  Veddic  devil  charmer, 
or  than  a  war  dance  of  Africans  or  Maoris. 

1  Foerster,  Raub  u.  Riickkehr  der  Perseplwnt. 


220  OUTLINES    OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

It  is  because  of  the  original  simplicity  and  naturalness 
of  such  rites  as  these  that,  on  whatever  side  we  look, 
within  the  bounds  of  Hellas  or  abroad,  rituals  of  the  same 
kind  meet  our  eye.  The  Eleusinia  of  Attica  had  their 
rivals  in  the  Thracian  and  the  Samothracian  mysteries  in 
honour  of  Dionysus  and  of  the  Cabiri :  nay,  we  know  that 
almost  every  town  of  Greece  had  its  own  circle  of  cere- 
monies, and  its  formal  worship  of  one  or  other  or  of  all  of 
the  earth  divinities.  Outside  the  bounds  of  Greece  are 
first  to  be  noted  the  Phrygian  rites  of  Cybele,  most  near 
among  Oriental  rituals  to  those  of  Hellas. 

There  was  in  Asia  Minor  the  worship  of  Cybele  and 
Sandon,  and  in  Cyprus  that  of  Aphrodite  and  Adonis  ; 
there  was  the  wounded  Thammuz  mourned  by  Tyrian 
maids,  and  in  Egypt  the  dead  Osiris  wept  and  sought  for 
by  Isis.  *  The  rites  of  Ceres  at  Eleusis  differ  little  from, 
these ' — the  rites  of  Osiris  and  Isis  (it  is  Lactantius  who 
is  speaking).  'As  there  Osiris  is  sought  amid  the  plaints 
of  his  mother,1  so  here  the  quest  is  for  the  lost  Persephone  ; 
and  as  Ceres  is  said  to  have  made  her  search  with  torches, 
so  (in  the  Osiris  mystery)  the  rites  are  marked  by  the 
throwing  of  brands.' 2  The  closer  we  examine  into  these 
various  rituals  and  their  attendant  myths,  the  more  shall 
we  be  struck  by  their  general  similarity  and  the  more 
clearly  shall  we  see  that  in  origin  and  first  intention  they 
were  all  the  same. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  likeness?  The  Greeks 
suppos'ed  that  many  of  their  beliefs  and  forms  of  worship 
had  been  received  from  the  Egyptians.  But  we  know  now 
that  an  adoption  of  this  kind  from  another  race  is  very 
rare  in  any  mythology,  and  may  be  left  out  of  account  in 
this  case :  so  that,  when  resemblances  such  as  those  we 

1  The  writer  is  mistaken  here,  for  Isis  was  the  wife,  not  the  mother, 
of  Osiris. 

2  Lactantius,  i.  21-24.     Though  this  writer  is  not  an  authority  for  the 
early  ceremonial  of  the  Isis  rites,  still,  from  what  we  know  of  the  conserva- 
tive nature  of  the  Egyptians,  we  may  fairly  conclude  that  these  had  not 
changed  much  even  so  late  as  in  the  days  of  Lactantius. 


UNIVERSALITY   OF  MYSTERIES.  221 

have  noticed  are  to  be  found  in  the  religions  of  many 
different  peoples,  they  spring  out  of  the  fundamental 
likeness  of  all  religions,  as  being  products  of  human 
thought.  This  was  the  case  with  the  mysteries  :  they  had 
their  root  in  instinctive  expressions  of  emotion,  not  in  any 
particular  story  nor  in  any  traditional  worship.  When 
we  find  the  Eleusinia  adopted  and  initiated  in  later  times 
and  in  distant  places,  we  are  not  to  assume  that  these 
phenomena  are  the  result  of  direct  missionary  efforts  on 
the  part  of  its  votaries,  but  rather  that  all  men  had  a 
natural  inclination  to  this  form  of  worship. 

No  more  ought  we  to  suppose  that  these  rites  them- 
selves were  transplanted  into  Greece  or  into  Attica  from 
any  earlier  home.  It  was  in  part  true,  no  doubt,  that  the 
rites  of  Dionysus  were  introduced  into  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries  from  Thrace ;  but  it  was  only  a  partial  truth. 
For  though  Dionysus  himself  may  not  have  been  originally 
known  at  Eleusis,  some  other  earth  god,  for  sure,  was 
known.  Dionysiac  worship  was  said,  we  know,  to  have 
been  founded  by  Orpheus.  And  then  men  went  further, 
and  attempted  to  find  a  derivation,  also  from  Thrace,  for  the 
Eleusinian  worship  of  Demeter  and  Persephone.  Eumolpos, 
the  fabled  introducer  of  those  rites,  is  called  by  late  writers 
the  son  of  Boreas  (the  north  wind),  or  else  of  Poseidon 
and  Chi  one — that  is  to  say,  of  the  sea  and  of  the  snow.  By 
this  was  meant  that  Eumolpos  had  come  from  northern 
Greece.  The  ancients  always  made  things  happen  in  the 
way  of  importation  and  personal  influence :  the  worship 
of  a  god  in  their  traditions  is  generally  said  to  have  been 
introduced  into  a  land  by  some  particular  hero.  But  such 
is  not  the  usual  history  of  religious  ideas.  Either  they 
spring  up  naturally  or  they  never  flourish  at  all. 

The  truth  is  that  mysteries  of  this  kind  are  almost 
universal,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  chance  which  among  many 
birth-places  of  them  attains  celebrity,  and  comes  to  be 
thought  the  mother  of  all  the  rest.  Eleusis,  which 
means  the  place  of  '  coming ' — that  is  to  say,  the  coming  of 


222  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  New  Year— cannot  originally  have  been  a  designation, 
of  one  or  two  particular  spots  only;  for  each  locality  must 
have  had  its  special  place  at  which  the  spring  and  spring's 
greenery  were  thought  to  come  back  and  appear  once 
more  to  the  world.  In  a  Norse  mythic  poem  which  really 
tells  the  story  of  the  marriage  of  Persephone  and  Dionysus 
in  a  different  guise,  it  is  related  how  a  maiden,  Ger$  (the 
Earth),1  agrees  to  meet  the  sun  god,  Freyr,2  '  in  the  warm 
wood  of  Bam,'  where  Barri  signifies  simply  'the  green.' 
Thus  any  green  wood  might  be  the  meeting-place  of  Freyr 
and  GerS  :  but  no  doubt  each  locality  fixed  upon  its  special 
Barri  wood.  Just  so  each  place  had  once  its  Eleusis,  or 
the  place  of  spring's  coming;  but  one  place  eventually 
outlasted  and  outshone  all  the  rest.  Yet  even  in  late 
days  there  were  more  places  with  this  name  than  one : 
there  was  an  Eleusis  in  Bceotia  as  well  as  in  Attica. 

We  can  account  in  this  way  for  the  fact  which  has 
sometimes  been  commented  on  as  strange,  that  .the 
Eleusinia  are  not  spoken  of  by  Homer  (the  epic  Homer) 
nor  by  Hesiod.  The  reason  is  to  be  found,  not — as  some 
have  alleged — in  the  lateness  in  time  of  the  Eleusinian 
form  of  worship,  but  in  the  commonness  of  such  festivals 
and  the  number  of  places  in  which  they  had  their  seat. 
The  importance  of  the  special  Attic  celebration  was  of  Jate 
growth,  for  it  was  due  in  chief  measure  to  the  supremacy 
of  Athens.  So  far  as  the  institution  of  the  rites  went, 
that  was  too  old  to  be  followed  back  in  the  history  of 
belief. 

Three  or  four  hundred  years  ago  men  had  a  use  for  the 
word  mystery  which  we  have  since  laid  aside.  It  was 
applied  to  those  primitive  representations  which  were  the 
first  divergence  from  the  old  miracle  plays  in  the  direction 
of  the  secular  drama.  Guilds  used  to  be  formed  out  of 
the  laity  for  the  enactment  of  these  *  mysteries,'  which, 
becoming  a  little  more  secularised  still,  were  afterwards 

1  GerSi  =  earth. 

8  At  first  an  earth  god,  and  afterwards  a  god  of  summer  and  of  the  sun. 


ORIGINAL  INTENTION   OF  THE  MYSTERIES.  223 

called  f  moralities.'  It  has  been  questioned  whether  the 
word,  when  thus  used,  had  any  etymological  connexion 
with  the  Greek  fivarripLov.1  But  that  is  a  matter  which 
concerns  us  nothing.  This  much  is  certain :  that  the 
mystery  of  the  Middle  Ages  represented  in  many  ways  the 
character  of  the  early  Eleusinia  and  other  celebrations  of 
the  same  order.  All  these  were  essentially  dramas.  They 
were,  if  you  will,  miracle  plays ;  for  the  miracle  which  they 
played  was  that  old,  long-standing  wonder  of  nature,  the 
return  of  the  New  Year  and  of  all  that  it  brings  with  it, 
the  reclothing  of  Earth  in  the  greenery  which  Winter  has 
stripped  off  and  hidden  away.  Goethe,  counting  the  stages 
by  which  melancholy  gains  a  sway  over  man's  mind,  notes 
how  at  last  it  begets  in  him  such  a  distaste  of  life,  such  an 
intense  ennui,  that  the  very  return  of  spring  strikes  his 
fancy  only  as  a  thing  foregone  and  wearisome  through 
constant  repetition.  To  man  in  primal  days  (but  it  need 
not  be  so  to  him  alone)  the  same  event  appeared  ever  new, 
and  so  wonderful  and  joyful  that  no  colour  could  paint,  no 
language  could  dignify  it  enough.  Man  sought  to  present 
the  glad  coming  of  summer  in  such  a  way  that  it  should 
appeal  to  all  the  senses  at  once ;  he  sang  it  in  endless 
rhymes,  he  made  myths  about  it,  and  then  he  enacted  the 
story  in  a  drama ;  and  thus  he  laid  the  foundation  not  of 
the  mysteries  only,  but  of  all  dramatic  representation. 

We  do  not,  it  is  true,  know  much  of  those  other  rites, 
Egyptian,  Asiatic,  or  half  Hellenic,  which  I  spoke  of  just 
now ;  but  what  we  do  know  is  enough  to  convince  us  that, 
like  the  Eleusinia  or  the  Dioriysiac  festivals,  they  took 
their  rise  in  the  same  desire  for  the  symbolic  portrayal  of 
two  great  events:  first,  the  sorrow  of  Nature  when  the 
warmth  of  the  sun  is  withdrawn  and  the  fruitful  growth 
of  plants  and  grasses  is  stayed,  and  then  her  joy  when 
these  are  all  restored.  The  advent  of  spring  was  the 

1  The  terms  moralities  mysteries,  sprang  up  only  at  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Mystery  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  derived  from  ministerium, 
i.e.  a  guild,  and  to  have  had  the  spelling  changed  by  false  analogy. 


224  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

'  good  spell '  of  the  heathen  peoples ;  the  death  of  summer 
was  their  book  of  doom. 

As  the  Eleusinia  constituted  the  chief  Greek  festival 
in  this  kind,  and  the  one  concerning  which  we  have  most 
information,  though  even  here  our  information  is  meagre 
enough,  I  will  take  this  alone  as  a  sample  of  the  Greek 
mystery,  and  allow  a  slight  sketch  of  that  to  stand  for  the 
rest.  We  all  know  the  story  upon  which  the  drama  was 
founded.  The  tale  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  hymn,  which 
was,  we  may  suppose,  chaunted  at  such  time  as  the  rites 
of  Deineter  and  Persephone  were  celebrated.  Plays  then, 
as  in  later  days,  required  their  prologue,  which  set  forth 
the  history  of  the  piece  about  to  be  enacted.  So  this 
Homeric  hymn  tells  the  tale  of  the  rape  and  return  of 
Persephone  almost  in  the  form  in  which  her  history 
formed  the  subject  of  a  mythic  drama  at  Eleusis. 

It  tells  us  how  the  girl  Persephone  was  wandering  with 
her  companion  maidens  in  the  Nysian  plain,  gathering 
crocus,  and  rose,  and  hyacinth,  and  fair  violets,  and, 
more  beautiful  than  all,  the  narcissus.1  The  deceitful 
earth  sent  up  this  flower  to  allure  the  goddess  a.way  from 
her  fellows ;  it  was  a  wonder  to  be  seen,  for  on  it  grew  a 
hundred  blossoms,  which  sent  forth  their  fragrance  over 
the  laughing  earth  and  the  salt  waves  of  the  sea.  But, 
as  the  maiden  stooped  to  seize  the  prize,  the  wide  earth 
gaped  apart,  and  the  awful  son  of  Kronos  leaped  forth  and 
bore  her  away  shrieking  in  his  golden  chariot.  But  none 
of  mortals  or  immortals  heard  her  call,  save  only  Hekate 
(the  moon)  in  her  cave,  and  Helios  (the  sun),  who  sat  apart 
from  the  other  gods  in  his  own  temple  receiving  the  fair 
offerings  of  men.  .  .  . 

But  an  echo  of  the  cry  reached  Demeter,  and  grief 
seized  her  mind.  She  rent  her  veil  and  put  from  her  her 
dark  blue  cloak,  and  like  a  bird  hurried  over  land  and 
sea  seeking  her  daughter.  For  nine  days  she  wandered 

1  The  name  of  this  flower  is  supposed  to  bear  a  special  allusion  to  the 
sleep  of  death,  or  of  the  winter  eartti  ^dpKrj,  numbness  or  d-eadness). 


STOEY  OF  THE  EAPE  OF  PERSEPHONE.  225 

thus,  a  torch  in  her  hand  ;  until  at  last  Hekate  came  to 
meet  her,  likewise  bearing  a  light.  And  these  two,  carry- 
ing their  torches,  sped  forth  together  until  they  came  to 
Helios ;  and  the  goddess  spake  to  him.  *  Do  thou,  O 
Sun,  who  from  the  divine  air  lookest  down  upon  all  earth 
and  sea,  tell  me  if  thou  hast  seen  any  one  of  gods  or 
men  who  against  my  daughter's  will  has  forcibly  carried 
her  away.'  And  he  answered,  '  Queen  Deiueter,  I  grieve 
much  for  thee  and  for  thy  slender-footed  daughter.  But 
know  that  Zeus,  the  cloud-gatherer,  has  done  this  thing, 
giving  thy  daughter  to  his  brother  Hades  for  his  fair  wife. 
Cease  then,  goddess,  from  immoderate  grief.  Aidoneus, 
who  is  king. of  many,  is  no  unseemly  kinsman  am6ng  the 
immortals.  .  .  . ' 

When  Demeter  had  heard  this  she  was  filled  with 
sharper  grief  and  with  anger  against  the  cloudy  son  of 
Kronos,  and  quitting  Olympus,  she  wandered  among  the 
cities  and  rich  fields  of  men,  obscuring  her  godhead.  At 
length  she  came  to  the  house  of  King  Keleos,  the  ruler  of 
Eleusis.  There  she  sat  down  by  a  well  in  the  guise  of 
an  old  woman.  And  the  daughters  of  Keleos  saw  her  as 
they  came  out  to  draw  water,  and  they  knew  her  not,  but 
spake  to  her.  .  .  .  And  Demeter  became  nurse  to  Demo- 
phoon,  the  son  of  Keleos  and  of  his  wife  Metaneira.  She 
fed  him  on  ambrosia  and  breathed  sweetly  upon  him  as 
he  lay  in  her  breast.  At  night  she  concealed  him  in  the 
strong  fire,  like  a  brand,  secretly,  without  his  parents' 
knowledge.  And  she  would  have  rendered  him  immortal ; 
but  Metaneira,  foolishly  watching  at  night,  saw  it,  and 
smote  her  side  and  shrieked  out.  .  .  .  And  fair-haired 
Demeter  put  from  her  in  anger  the  child,  and  laying  him 
upon  the  ground,  she  spake  to  Metaneira.  '  Oh,  foolish 
thou  !  how  hast  thou  erred !  For  by  the  gods'  oath  I 
swear,  by  the  unappeasable  water  of  Styx,  I  would  have 
made  thy  son  immortal  and  given  him  unending  fame. 
But  now  he  cannot  avoid  death  and  his  fate.  But  un- 


226  OUTLINES  OF  TKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

dying  glory  shall  be  his,  because  he  has  sat  upon  my  knee 
and  has  slept  in  my  arms.  Know  that  I  am  Demeter.  .  .  .' 
Then,  as  she  spake,  the  goddess  changed  her  guise,  and 
cast  off  from  her  her  eld.  Beauty  breathed  round  her, 
and  from  her  fragrant  garment  spread  a  sweet  odour ;  far 
shone  the  light  from  that  immortal  flesh,  and  on  her 
shoulders  gleamed  her  yellow  hair,  till  the  house  was  filled 
with  the  sheen  of  it  a,s  with  the  lightning.  And  she  left 
the  palace.  .  .  .  And  when  morning  came  Keleos  sum- 
moned his  people  and  told  them  what  had  happened,  and 
bade  them  build  a  costly  temple  to  fair-haired  Demeter. 
And  here  the  goddess  sat  down,  far  apart  from  the  councils 
of  the  gods.  Nor  while  she  was  there  did  the  earth  yield 
any  seed ;  in  vain  men  ploughed,  and  white  barley  fell 
into  the  furrows  in  vain ;  until  Zeus  sent  his  messenger, 
Iris,  to  entreat  her  to  return.  And,  one  after  another, 
came  all  the  immortals  with  gifts  and  honours,  but  she 
obstinately  turned  from  all  their  words. 

Then  at  last  Zeus  sent  down  unto  Erebus  his  golden- 
wand  ed  messenger  to  lead  away  Persephone  from  the 
murky  land,  that  her  mother  might  be  comforted.  .  .  . 
And  Hades  did  not  disobey  the  command  of  Zeus  the 
king.  Persephone  rejoiced  and  leaped  up  in  joy.  But 
he  (Hades)  had  craftily  given  her  a  seed  of  pomegranate, 
that  she  might  not  remain  for  ever  above  with  holy 
Demeter.  Now  Hades  yoked  his  steeds  to  the  golden 
chariot,  and  Hermes  seized  the  reins  and  the  whii)  and 
drove  straight  from  the  abodes  of  death,  and,  cutting 
through  the  deep  darkness,  they  came  to  where  Demeter 
stood.  .  .  . 

But  because  Persephone  had  eaten  the  fruit  of  the 
pomegranate  she  must  still  pass  one-third  of  the  year 
below  with  her  husband  ;  two-thirds  she  spends  on  earth 
with  her  mother. 

The  history  which  we  have  just  narrated,  and  which 
occupies  the  first  portion  of  the  Homeric  hymn  to 
Demeter,  commemorates  a  nature  myth  of  unfathoin- 


THE  NATURE  MYTH  WHICH  UNDERLIES  IT.  227 

able  antiquity.  Towards  the  end  of  the  hymn  the  poet 
strays  into  legends  which  have  more  to  do  with  the  sup- 
posed origin  of  the  Eleusinia  and  with  the  teaching  to  man- 
kind of  the  use  of  agriculture — elements  neither  of  them, 
as  I  shall  presently  point  out,  belonging  to  the  earliest 
myth  of  the  earth  goddess.  Wherefore,  over  this  latter 
portion  of  the  Homeric  hymn — telling  how  the  goddess 
Demeter  came  again  to  earth,  to  the  Rarian  plain,  and 
how  the  corn  sprang  up  as  she  passed,  how  she  made  the 
whole  earth  blithe  and  fruitful,  how  she  at  last  appointed 
the  '  law-dispensing  kings,'  Triptolemos,  and  Diocles,  and 
Eumolpos,  and  Keleos,  to  preserve  her  rites — over  all  this 
we  will  pass. 

Demeter  is  yq-MTiip,  mother  earth.  Persephone  was 
called  at  Eleusis  Core,  the  maiden,  or,  more  literally  still, 
the  '  germ/  Eleusis  is  *  the  coming,'  not  originally,  I 
suspect,  of  Demeter  to  earth,  but  of  the  returning  spring. 
And  we  may  see  how  truly  in  this  poem,  even  though  it 
has  an  epic  form,  all  the  dramatic  instincts  are  satisfied. 
The  Norsemen  had  their  celebrations  (a  kind  of  mystery, 
too)  of  the  death  of  the  earth  in  winter,  or  perhaps  one 
should  rather  say  of  that  visitation  which  is  peculiar  to 
Northern  climates — the  total  extinction  of  the  sun  himself 
during  the  coldest  months.  The  festival  (or  fast)  was 
called  the  bale  or  death  of  Balder.  It  was  kept  by  the 
lighting  of  great  fires,  called  the  bale  fires.1  But,  strange 
to  say,  the  season  chosen  for  this  celebration  was  not 
winter,  when  the  sun  was  really  hidden,  but  summer — nay, 
the  very  height  of  summer,  Midsummer's  Eve.  It  was 
thus,  by  taking  the  sun  at  the  moment  of  his  greatest 
power,  that  a  dramatic  *  force  was  given  to  the  miracle 
play  which  enacted  the  sun's  own  overthrow.  Just  the 
same  spirit  is  visible  here.  Persephone,  the  maiden,  the 

1  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  bale  fires  changed  their  names,  and  became 
St.  John's  fires  (Johannisfeuer,  feux  de  St.  Jean),  and  under  these  names 
are  still  kept  up  in  Germany  and  some  parts  of  France,  and  in  the  west  or 
extreme  north  of  Scotland.  St.  John's  Day  of  course  occurs  at  Mid- 
summer. 

Q2 


228  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

image  of  spring1,  is  found  playing  in  the  meadows  and 
gathering  the  flowers  of  the  early  year  at  the  moment 
when  Aidoneus  comes  to  carry  her  below.  Eightly  this 
rape  should  have  been  made  to  happen  in  the  autumn ; 
but  then  the  force  of  contrast  between  life  and  death 
would  have  been  lost.  So  it  happens  in  the  spring ;  and 
probably  the  chief  Eleusinian  feasts  were  originally  at 
this  season.1 

On  the  other  hand,  though  the  changes  of  the  year 
are  gradual,  those  between  day  and  night  are  rapid  and 
impressive.  Granted  that  the  time  of  year  is  fixed  as  it 
is,  both  here  and  in  the  Northern  myth,  the  drama  will  be 
the  most  effective  if  the  time  of  day  in  which  its  action 
falls  is  made  to  be  the  evening.  Balder 's  bale  fires  were 
lighted  at  sundown,  and  kept  burning  all  through  the 
night.  And  here  also,  reading  a  little  between  the  lines 
of  the  hymn — that  is  to  say,  making  allowance  for  some 
extension  of  time  in  a  story  which  is  told  epically,  not 
dramatically 2 — we  can  gather,  I  think,  that  the  rape  of 
Persephone  was  originally  thought  to  happen  just  at 
sunset,  and  then  the  search  for  her  to  extend  throughout 
one  night.  Behind  the  expanded  season  myth  lies  the 
more  primitive  myth  of  light  and  dark.  For  see  how  the 
positions  of  the  sun  and  moon  are  incidentally  told  us : — 

And  her  companions  all  vainly  sought  her. 
Of  gods  or  mortal  men  none  heard  her  cry, 
Saving  two  only,  the  great  Perseus'  daughter, 
The  goddess  of  the  cave,  mild  Hekate, 
And  bright  Hyperion's  son,  King  Helios, 
He  too  gave  ear  unto  that  call ;  for  he, 
Taking  from  men  their  offerings  beauteous, 
In  his  own  home  sat  from  the  gods  away. 

1  Originally.    As   is  afterwards   suggested,  it  is  probable  that  their 
transference  to  autumn  denoted  a  change  from  a  feast  which  merely  cele- 
brated the  return  of  the  year  to  one  which  was  more  distinctly  a  farmer's 
festival. 

2  Such  allowances  in  interpreting  any  particular  form  of  a  myth  we 
must  always  be  prepared  to  make. 


THE  YEAR  AND  THE  DAY.  229 

The  sun  is  away  from  Olympus  because  he  is  near  his 
setting  ;  he  is  sitting  in  his  western  tent  by  the  homes  of 
men.  Hekate,  the  moon,  hears  from  her  cave  ;  for  she  is 
still  below  the  earth.  And  now  Demeter,  who  has  caught 
a  faint  echo  of  that  cry  of  anguish,  hurries  over  the  earth 
with  a  torch  in  her  hand,  seeking  Persephone  :  it  is  night. 
Anon  she  encounters  Hekate,  who  comes  to  meet  her, 
likewise  carrying  a  light  :  for  now  the  moon  has  risen. 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  Eleusinia,  or  some  festivals 
of  a  like  kind,  may  not  have  existed  before  the  familiar 
use  of  agriculture.  Demeter  is  much  more  than  the 
patroness  of  the  husbandman's  art  ;  she  is  the  earth 
mother  herself,  the  parent  of  all  growth.  The  coming  of 
spring  would  be  not  less  welcome  in  days  when  men  lived 
upon  the  proceeds  of  hunting,  upon  flocks  and  herds,  or 
upon  wild  fruits.  All  life  is  in  the  hands  of  the  fruit- 
bearing  goddess. 

Tala  KdpirovQ  a  >'/£i,  £to  K\ij£tTe  fjirjTepa  yaiav 


chaunted  the  Dodonian  priests.1  And  they  might  have 
sung  the  same  to  Gaia  or  to  Demeter  (Mother  Gaia)  ages 
before  corn  had  been  first  sown. 

But  agriculture  was  introduced  ;  and  the  special  im- 
portance of  earth's  fruitfulness  as  the  cause  of  the  growth 
of  the  grain  came  in  time  to  throw  into  the  background 
the  earth's  other  miscellaneous  gifts.  Nevertheless  this 
change  was  long  in  taking  place.  The  myth  which  is 
connected  with  this  aspect  of  the  Eleusinia  —  that  is  to 
say,  their  aspect  as  celebrations  of  the  new  birth,  not  so 
much  of  the  year  as  of  the  ear,  and  as  the  special  glorifi- 
cation of  the  husbandman's  art  —  is  the  myth  of  Triptole- 
mus.  He,  said  the  legend,  was  charged  by  Demeter  to 
spread  abroad  her  worship,  and  to  teach  men  the  mystery 
of  sowing  corn.  His  name  explains  his  position  in  the 
myth  :  he  is  rpLTroXos,  the  thrice-ploughed  furrow.  In 

1  Pausanias,  x.  12,  5. 


230  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

later  days  Triptolemus  grew  to  be  a  very  important 
character  in  the  Demeter  legend.  But  in  the  Homeric 
hymn,  which  is  probably  almost  contemporary  with 
Hesiod — that  is  to  say,  not  later  than  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ1 — Triptolemus  plays  no  very  leading  part. 
He  is  one  (the  first,  it  is  true)  among  many  kings  who  are 
said  to  have  received  the  command  of  Demeter  to  institute 
her  rites.  '  She  went,'  says  the  hymn,  6  to  the  law-giving 
kings,  to  Triptolemus  and  horse-driving  Diocles,  and  the 
might  of  Eurnolpos,  and  to  Keleos,  leader  of  the  people, 
and  to  them  she  told  how  to  perform  her  holy  service.' 
Moreover,  all  this  history  of  the  institution  of  the  mysteries 
forms  a  separate  part  of  the  hymn,  and  is  in  no  way  con- 
nected with  the  main  legend  which  was  related  just  now. 

The  worship,  therefore,  of  Demeter  in  her  character  of 
goddess  of  husbandry  has  a  second  place  in  the  intention 
of  the  mysteries.  In  later  times,  say  from  the  beginning  of 
the  fifth  century,  when  the  history  of  the  great  goddesses 
begins  to  be  common  in  art,  Triptolemus  is  rarely  absent 
from  such  representations.  He  commonly  forms  one  of  a 
group  which  contains  Demeter  and  Persephone,  Hades, 
Hekate,  and  Hermes.  In  one  part  of  the  picture  may  be 
the  god  of  the  under  world ;  in  the  other  is  Triptolemus  in 
snaky  chariot,  scattering  abroad  the  grain.  When  this 
change  had  taken  place,  and  the  character  of  Triptolemus 
had  become  an  essential  in  the  Persephone  legend,  the  mys- 
teries had  come  to  be  much  less  rejoicings  at  the  return  of 
the  spring  than  a  sort  of  harvest  homes,  rejoicings  for  the 
in  gathered  wealth  which  earth  had  yielded. 

When  agriculture  is  in  its  infancy  men  do  not  sow  in 
the  autumn.  They  plant  some  quick-growing  corn,  which 
takes  a  few  months  only  to  ripen ;  and  what  is  sown  in 
the  early  spring  is  reaped  before  the  summer.  The 
.French  name  for  buckwheat,  lie  sarrasin,  is  derived  from 
the  use  by  the  Tartars  of  this  grain,  which  can  be  sown 

1  Lenormant,  however,  puts  it  later.     See  Daremberg  and  Saglio's  Die- 
tionnaire  des  Antiquites,'axt. « Ceres.' 


THE  HARVEST  HOME.  231 

during  the  short  sojourn  which  the  nomadic  people 
make  in  one  spot.  Therefore  m  early  days  the  festival  of 
Demeter  and  Core  would  naturally  fall  in  the  spring. 
Later  in  time  there  came  to  be  two  festivals — the  one 
dedicated  to  the  coming  up  (anodos,  avo&os)  of  Core  or 
the  germ,  the  other  to  her  descent  (kathodes,  /cdOoSos) 
into  the  infernal  realms.  The  second  was  Persephone's 
marriage  with  Pluto — that  is  to  say,  it  was  concerned  with 
the  most  germane  matter  of  the  Eleusinian  myth — it  was, 
beside,  the  festival  of  the  sower,  and  was  for  these  reasons 
the  greatest.  Yet  we  observe  that  in  being  held  in  the 
autumn  it  runs  counter  to  the  picture  which  is  presented 
to  us  in  the  Homeric  hymn.  The  anodos  was  associated 
with  the  worship  of  Dionysos ;  it  was  celebrated  in  his 
month,  the  flower  month,  and  was  supposed  (it  was  an 
addition  to  the  old  legend)  to  celebrate  the  marriage  of 
Persephone  with  that  god. 

Whether  the  mysteries  were,  as  at  first,  feasts  to  the 
spring,  or,  as  later  on  they  became,  feasts  to  the  goddess 
of  agriculture,  harvest  homes,  they  were,  before  all  things, 
peasant  festivals.  They  belonged,  I  have  said,  to  the 
autochthones,  the  simple  early  inhabitants  of  the  soil. 
To  that  belonging  they  owed  their  vast  antiquity.  Con- 
quering nations  passed  over  the  land  and  left  these  rustic 
rites  unchanged,  adhering  to  one  place,  handed  on  by  an 
everlasting  tradition  from  generation  to  generation.1  At 

1  Enough  has,  I  imagine,  been  said  in  this  and  in  the  previous  chapter 
to  show  that  Demeter  was  one  among  the  oldest  divinities  worshipped  in 
Greece.  Herodotus  tells  us  so  much  (ii.  171).  Pausanias  says  that  she 
was  known  as  Demeter  Pelasgis  (ii.  22,  10).  She  was  called  by  the  same 
title  in  Arcadia,  the  very  home  of  all  that  was  most  ancient  in  Greek 
culture  (Herod.  I.  c.)  We  have  seen  how  obstinately  her  worship  was 
maintained  there. 

Persephone  is  not  really  to  be  distinguished  from  Demeter.  For 
Demeier  herself  often  appears  as  a  maiden  as  Ar)n-f)Tr)p  \K6t\  (Paus.  i.  22), 
and  this  is  identical  in  meaning  with  the  name  K6pr}  given  to  Persephone. 
Demettr  is  spoken  of  as  daughter  of  FT)  KovpoTp6<f>os  (the  nursing  earth). 
Moreover  in  artistic  representations  it  is  very  hard  to  make  a  distinction 
between  mother  and  daughter.  (See  on  this  subject  Gerhard,  6fr.  Myth. 
§  240,  4 ;  and  in  Akad.  Abt.  ii.  357  ;  and  Overbeck,  Gr.  Kunstmyth.  ii.  442, 


232  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

last  this  creed,  which  had  rested  quiet  *  under  the  drums 
and  tramplings '  of  many  conquests,  began  to  rise  again. 
The  down-trodden  race  vindicated  its  old  power;  and  the 
stone  which  had  been  overlooked  in  the  first  building  of 
the  Greek  and  Eoman  religions  became  the  headstone  of 
the  corner. 

All  the  charm  of  the  unknown  belongs  to  celebrations 
such  as  these,  whose  beginnings  lie  covered  up  by  so  many 
centuries  of  neglect.  In  Rome  the  festival  of  the  Lupercalia 
kept  alive  the  memory  of  a  society  of  shepherds  and  hunts- 
men who  lived  before  cities  had  been  built  or  even  agricul- 
ture established.  The  same  feast  lived  to  witness  the  fall  of 
the  Republic,  to  see  a  *  kingly  crown'  thrice  presented  to 
the  Republic's  destroyer  ; l  and,  lasting  far  beyond  that,  it 
saw  the  fall  of  the  religion  of  Rome  after  the  fall  of  its  old 
government ;  it  survived  the  introduction  of  Christianity, 
and  was  celebrated  as  late  as  in  the  reign  of  Anthemius. 
One  may  almost  say  that  it  is  commemorated  still  at  the 
Carnival.  The  Eleusinia  had  as  long  a  life.  They  were 
finally  crushed  out  by  the  monks  who  entered  Greece  in 
A.D.  395  in  the  train  of  Alaric's  invading  army ;  and  that 
these  proselytists  should  have  exerted  themselves  in  the 

448.  See  the  Harpy  Tomb  of  Xanthos  for  an  example  of  the  likeness  be- 
tween the  two  goddesses.) 

From  this  I  am  led  to  believe  that  some  parts  of  the  myth  of  the  two 
Great  Goddesses  may  be  repetitions,  as  the  same  adventures  would  have  to 
be  attributed  to  each.  Thus  I  imagine  that  the  wanderings  of  Demeter 
belong  of  necessity  to  her  as  a  goddess  of  earth,  and  quite  alone  express 
the  notion  of  the  change  from  summer  to  winter— the  change  in  appear- 
ance of  ihe  earth  being  mythically  represented  as  a  change  from  place  to 
place,  a  change  in  space.  This  will  become  more  clear  when  we  compare 
with  the  Demeter  mysteries  those  of  which  we  have  some  traces  among 
the  Teutonic  folk  (see  Ch.  VII.)  It  follows  that  the  rape  of  Persephone 
and  the  wanderings  of  Demeter  are  mythic  repetitions  of  the  same 
notion. 

This  leads  us  back  to  a  still  earlier  form  of  the  mysteries  when 
Demeter  and  Persephone  were  not  united,  but  separate. 

See  Daremberg  and  Saglio's  Diet,  des  Ant.,  art. '  Ceres,'  by  F.  Lenormant, 
for  the  traces  of  Demeter  worship  in  Greece. 

1  *  You  all  did  see  that  on  the  Lupercal 

I  thrice  presented  him  a  kingly  crown, 
Which  he  did  thrice  refuse.' — Julius  Ctesar 


THE  ORGY.  233 

matter  shows  that  the  faith  had  still  a  hold  upon  the 
affections  of  the  people. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  is  in  these  rites  another 
element  beside  the  mere  joy  of  living  and  of  seeing  the 
earth  live  again,  or  one  may  at  least  say  a  more 
eager  and  passionate  expression  of  that  joy.  The  sub- 
stratum of  phallic  worship,  which  lies  at  the  root  of  many 
elaborate  rituals  such  as  these,  accompanies  them  in  their 
after  development.  Therefore  is  it  that  in  close  relation- 
ship to  the  mnsterion  stands  the.  orge.  Both  words  have 
been  handed  down  for  perpetual  use  in  later  ages.  In 
historic  times  the  orgy  belonged  more  especially  to  the 
later  Dionysus,  the  wine  god.  The  mystery  still  belonged 
to  Demeter. 

In  such  conceptions  as  this  Bacchus,  or  the  Yeclic 
Soma,  or  Agni,  are  worshipped  beings  half  physical, 
half  abstract.  On  the  one  side  is  the  thing,  the  honey- 
dew,  the  wine,  which  excites  passion,  or  the  fire  which 
symbolises  it ;  on  the  other  side,  the  emotion  itself.  But 
men  do  not  analyse  their  complex  feelings  into  their 
different  elements  ;  they  do  not  recognise  that  fire  is  a 
symbol  of  the  passion,  or  that  the  wine  is  only  a  cause-  of 
the  tumultuous  emotions  which  they  feel.  The  wine  or 
the  fire  they  believe  enters  into  them  and  itself  consti- 
tutes the  mental  condition  which  they  know.  Therefore 
in  worshipping  the  vine  men  did  in  fact  worship  the 
strength  of  their  feelings,  and  these  produced  in  them 
that  emotional  state  which  is  necessary  to  belief,  and 
which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  religions.  To  produce 
such  a  condition  of  mind  was  the  object  of  the  orgy ; 
which,  in  giving  a  more  distinctly  emotional,  gave  in  the 
end  a  more  distinctly  religious  character  to  the  mystic 
festivals. 

In  another  way  also,  pleasanter  to  contemplate,  reli- 
gious excitement  was  maintained — namely,  by  the  supreme 
influence  of  music.  Tradition  shows  us  how  early  was  the 
use  of  this  stimulus  in  the  Eleusinia.  There  was  at  Eleusis 


234  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

a  family  which  claimed  the  hereditary  office  of  chief  priest 
(hierophant)  in  the  celebrations.     They  were  the  Eumol- 
pidse;  and  they  pretended  an  eponymous  ancestor,  Eu- 
molpos,  who  was  supposed  to  have  been-  the  first  priest  of 
Demeter  and  Dionysus  at  Eleusis,  and  to  have  introduced 
their  mysteries  there.      In  reality  Eumolpos  is  nothing 
more  than  the  *  sweet- voiced  one,'  the  leader  of  the  choir. 
The  name  Eumolpidse  is  that  of  an  office,  not  of  a  family : 
it  must  have  been  in  later  times  that  the  office  became 
hereditary  and  gave  its  designation  to  a  single  house. 
But   that   these  sweet   singers    (eumolpoi)    sho.uld    have 
claimed  the  credit  of   originating  the  Demetric  worship 
argues  a  vast  antiquity  for  the  choral  performance  therein, 
when  the  leading  singer  was  likewise  the  officiating  priest. 
The  excitement  which  is  wrought  of  old  observances, 
imperfectly  understood,  the  halo  at  once  of  mystery  and 
of   antiquity,  grew  up  rapidly  around  the  ritual  of  the 
Eleusinia.     Strong  emotion  not  much  restrained,  fostered 
by  music  and  a  kind  of  holy  drama,  and  surrounded  by  much 
that  is  ancient  and  unexplained — these    are  ingredients 
which  in  all  ages  will  produce  the  same  effects.    Let  us  note 
that  all  the  c  mystics  '  in  the  modern  purely  religious  sense 
— all  those,  I  mean,  who  have  enshrined  their  thoughts  of 
God  in  a  halo  of  rapt  emotion — have  turned  to  such  dra- 
matic pictures  as  the  Greeks  rejoiced  in  at  Eleusis ;  and  the 
converse  holds  good,  that  wherever  we  find  these  dramatic 
celebrations   we  may  be  sure  that  the  doctrines   which 
they  contain  will  take  sooner  or  later  a  genuinely  mystic 
complexion.     St.  Francis  of  Assisi  is  the  typical  '  mystic  ' 
of  the  Middle  Age.     His  biographer  *   has  recorded  the 
care  with  which  he  prepared,  and  the  pleasure  he  took  in 
the  enaction  of,  a  drama  representing  the  birth  of  Christ, 
as  nearly  like  the  drama  we  have  been  describing  as  the 
difference  between  their  two  subjects  and  the  lapse  of 
intervening  centuries  would  allow. 

1  Thomas  of  Cellano  in  Acta  SS.  Octobris,  torn.  2. 


CATHOLIC  MYSTERIES.  235 

c  The  day  of  joy  approached,  the  time  of  rejoicing  was 
near.  The  brothers  (of  the  Order  of  Franciscans)  are 
assembled  from  many  places  ;  the  men  and  women  of  the 
country  round,  according  to  their  capacities,  prepare 
candles  and  torches  for  illuminating  the  night,  that  night 
whose  shining  star  lit  up  all  future  days  and  years.  *  At 
length  came  the  Saint,  and  finding  everything  prepared, 
saw  and  was  glad.  Even  a  manger  is  got  ready  and  hay 
procured,  and  an  ox  and  an  ass  are  brought  in.  Honour 
and  praise  are  given  to  simplicity,  to  poverty  and  humility, 
and  Campogreco  is  made  as  it  were  a  new  Bethlehem.  .  .  . 
The  night  is  illumined  like  the  day,  and  is  most  grateful 
to  men  and  animals.  The  peasantry  approach  and  with 
new  joys  celebrate  the  renewal  of  the  mysteries.  He 
(St.  Francis)  imitates  the  voice  of  woods,  and  the  rocks 
rejoicing  answer.  The  brothers  sing,  paying  their  meed 
of  praise  to  the  Lord.  The  Saint  stands  before  the  pro- 
cession, heaving  sighs,  bowed  with  emotion  and  suffused 
with  a  wondrous  joy.  They  celebrate  the  solemn  service 
of  the  Mass.' 

Is  it  not  by  a  true  instinct  that  the  Church  which 
claims  to  be  built  by  a  mystic  power,  and  to  transmit  its 
spiritual  influence  through  channels  unsounded  by  reason, 
shrouds  its  acts  of  worship  even  now  in  a  veil  of  half- 
explained  drama,  and  wraps  its  dogmas  round  with  a 
garment  of  melodious  sounds  P 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  mystae  in  the  Eleu- 
sinia,  with  precisely  the  same  intention  as  St.  Francis,  re- 
enacted  in  a  certain  defined  series  of  dramas  the  chief 
details  of  the  myth  above  narrated — that  is  to  say,  the 
loss  of  the  maiden  (Core),  the  journeys  of  her  mother,  the 
sorrows  of  the  goddess  by  the  well,  the  honour  done  her 
in  the  house  of  Keleos,  the  preparation  of  the  mystic 
drink  by  which  Demeter  was  delighted  and  which  became 
the  sacrament  of  her  votaries,1  and  finally  the  restoration 

1  This  mystic  drink,  kykeon  (Kureifr),  is  described  as  having  been  made 
of  meal  and  water  flavoured  with  mint. 


236  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

to  her  of  her  daughter  Persephone.  And  then  perhaps 
came,  as  a  pendant  to  this,  the  institution  of  her  rites  and 
the  command  to  Triptolemus  to  spread  abroad  the  worship 
of  the  Great  Goddesses. 

In  this  history  of  Demeter  there  are  some  features 
which  constantly  recur  in  the  myths  of  earth  goddesses 
wherever  they  are  found ;  others  are  peculiar  to  the  Greek 
legend.  It  has  been  already  said  that  the  mission  of 
Triptolemus  belongs  to  the  later,  and  therefore  less  essen- 
tial, parts  of  the  legend.  There  are,  again,  some  parts  of 
the  Demeter  myth — as  describrd  in  the  Homeric  hymn — 
which  have  been  somewhat  distorted  from  their  original 
and  universal  shape,  and  made  to  take  a  peculiar  character. 
This  has  been  the  case  with  the  history  of  the  wanderings 
of  Demeter.  In  the  Greek  legend  they  are  represented  as 
if  undertaken  solely  in  search  of  Persephone.  In  reality 
the  earth  goddess  is  by  virtue  of  her  very  nature  a  wan- 
derer, and  is  always  represented  as  passing  from  place  to 
place.  Demeter's  journeyings  are  of  the  very  essence  of 
her  character,  and  could  not  have  been  omitted  from  any 
myth  concerning  her.  But  at  the  same  time  they  could 
not  have  depended  entirely  upon  the  doings  of  Perse- 
phone, for  this  conclusive  reason,  that  Persephone  and 
Demeter  are  only  different  forms  of  the  same  individuality. 

We  see  that  the  earth  goddess  is  a  wandering  goddess 
when  we  come  to  examine  the  myths  which  concern  her 
and  the  ritual  observances  which  have  sprung  up  in  her 
honour  in  many  different  lands.  We  have  compared 
Demeter  with  some  of  the  chthonic  divinities  of  the  East, 
of  Egypt  or  of  Asia.  Among  these  it  is  well  known  that 
Isis  is  supposed  to  have  wandered  from  land  to  land,  and 
in  the  ritual  observances  dedicated  to  this  goddess  no 
small  part  consisted  in  dragging  her  image  from  place  to 
place.  The  Ephesian  Artemis,  another  earth  goddess,  was 
also  borne  about.  When  we  take  occasion,  as  in  a  future 
chapter  we  shall  do,  to  confront  with  the  myth  and  ritual 
of  Demeter  the  myth  and  ritual  of  the  earth  goddess  of 


THE  WANDERINGS   OF  D£M£T£R.  237 

the  Teutonic  races,  we  shall  see  that  the  latter  divinity 
was  also  noted  for  her  wandering  nature.  The  essential 
meaning  of  the  myth  in  every  case  is  this:  the  earth 
goddess  becomes  identified  in  thought  with  the  green 
earth,  and  in  spring  she  is  deemed  to  come  back  again  to 
those  who  are  waiting  and  longing  for  her.  And  the  idea 
is  made  more  real  by  a  dramatic  representation,  which  in 
spring  time  carries  the  goddess  from  village  to  village, 
from  farm  to  farm,  as  though  her  coming  there  did  in- 
augurate the  new  year.1 

But  in  course  of  time  the  earth  goddess  becomes  sepa- 
rated in  mythology  from  the  divinity  of  spring,  and  then 
a  Persephone,  or  an  Osiris,  or  an  Adonis,  or  a  Freyr,  or  an 
Odhur,2  a  daughter,  a  lover,  or  a  husband,  has  to  play  a 
second  part  in  the  ritual  beside  the  earth  mother.  Owing 
to  this  kind  of  change,  the  wanderings  of  Demeter  have 
taken  a  new  character  in  the  Greek  myth.  They  are  there 
represented  as  being  undertaken  in  the  search  for  a  lost 
daughter — that  is  to  say,  as  following  after  the  departing 
spring,  rather  than  as  announcing  its  coming  to  the  earth. 
Agreeably  with  the  change  in  the  story,  the  received  myth 
about  Eleusis  itself  was  that  it  was  only  the  place  to  which 
Demeter  had  come  in  the  course  of  her  wanderings  in 
search  of  Persephone.  That  which  allows  us  to  correct 
this  account  is,  first,  the  comparison  of  this  myth  with 
the  myths  of  other  earth  goddesses ;  and,  secondly,  the 
appreciation  of  the  fuller  meaning  which  the  early  form 
of  the  story  would  give  to  the  name  Eleusis.3 

The  Homeric  hymn  speaks  of  Demeter  going  over  land 
and  sea,  but  in  language  somewhat  vague ;  in  the  drama 
the  details  of  these  wanderings  were  doubtless  repre- 
sented. All  we  know  from  the  hymn  is  that  the  goddess 
went  like  a  bird  over  the  land  and  water ;  that  for  nine 
days  she  traversed  all  the  earth.  Prom  a  comparison  of 
this  myth  with  those  preserved  in  the  Eoman  form  of  Isis 

1  This  idea  is  beautifully  put  forward  by  Lucretius,  ii.  597-64 
2  See  Chapter  VII.  *  See  supra. 


238  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

worship  or  the  Teutonic  earth  worship,  we  gather  that 
in  all  these  cases  the  sea  voyage  was  a  very  important 
element.  A  boat  was  dragged  about  during  the  Isis 
festival  in  Home,  and  a  boat  was  the  symbol  of  the 
Teutonic  earth  goddess.  This  part  of  Demeter's  journey 
was,  1  imagine,  alluded  to  in  the  phrase  a\a$s  /xucrrat, 
'  To  the  sea  mystics  ! '  which  was  called  out  on  the  second 
day  of  the  Eleusinian  celebrations.  As  none  did  betake 
themselves  to  any  sort  of  sea  voyage,  the  phrase  has, 
naturally  enough,  been  found  puzzling  to  commentators. 
Some  have  said  that  it  meant  that  men  were  to  wash 
themselves  in  the  sea ;  but  that  explanation  is  surely  in- 
adequate. The  day  itself  of  the  festival  was  called  by  the 
name  aXaSs  /^vo-rat;  the  mere  act  of  ablution  could  hardly 
have  filled  up  the  chief  part  of  that  day's  ritual.  I  rather 
imagine  this  name  to  have  been  a  relic  from  a  time  when 
the  supposed  sea  voyage  of  the  goddess  was  literally  imi- 
tated by  her  votaries,  though  this  custom  was  afterwards 
omitted  and  the  journey  was  made  by  land. 

Next  after  this  followed  certain  sacrifices  made  in  the 
city  of  Athens,  and  then  was  formed  the  procession  to  go 
from  Athens  to  that  holy  spot  Eleusis.  This  journey  might 
be  matched  by  those  other  ritual  observances  alluded  to  just 
now,  the  bearing  about  of  Isis,  or  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis, 
or  of  the  Teutonic  goddess.  It  was  in  itself  a  sort  of  drama  : 
it  represented  in  its  way  the  wanderings  of  Demeter,  and  so 
in  a  degree  anticipated  the  drama  which  was  afterwards 
to  take  place  at  Eleusis.  In  this  initial  procession,  how- 
ever, it  was  not  an  image  of  Demeter  which  the  mystse 
carried  with  them  as  they  went,  bufc  an  image  of  the  boy 
lacchos,  who  was  identified  with  Dionysus  and  here  stood 
for  the  young  year.  It  is  this  initiatory  procession  which, 
as  I  suppose,  contains  in  it  the  most  primitive  elements  of 
the  ritual  of  the  chthonic  divinities.  The  wild  dances 
and  processions  in  which  all  these  rituals  take  their  rise 
precede  the  building  of  temples  or  the  possibility  of  any 
more  formal  dramas. 


THE  ELEUSINIA.  239 

As  the  accounts  which  have  come  down  to  us  of  this 
great  Greek  festival  are- from  the  latter  days  of  heathenism 
— nay,  the  best  account  is  from  the  pen  of  a  Christian 
father1 — they  necessarily  exhibit  the  confusion  of  those 
elements  which  time  had  brought  together  to  form  a  latter- 
day  mystery.  And  we  have  before  us  the  task  of  distin- 
guishing what  is  new  from  what  is  ancient  in  them. 
There  are  descriptions  of  some  processions  such  as  might 
have  been  made  a  thousand  years  before,  and  there  are 
symbolic  phrases  and  rituals  which  betoken  an  age  not 
long  before  Christ.  But  it  so  happens  that  the  order  of 
introduction  into  the  ritual  of  each  element  in  it  roughly 
corresponds  with  the  place  of  that  portion  in  order  of 
performance ;  so  that  the  first  days  of  the  mysteries 
contain  the  most  antique  constituents,  and  we  gradually, 
as  we  approach  the  end  of  the  festival,  come  to  newer  and 
newer  additions. 

The  half- forgotten  drama  of  the  procession  was  more 
ancient  than  the  conscious  formulated  drama  which  took 
place  at  Eleusis ;  yet  even  these  later  additions  did  little 
else  than  repeat,  with  elaborations,  the  story  which  the  first 
parts  were  designed  to  set  forth.  On  the  whole  the  wonder 
rather  is  that  the  simpler  myths  and  earlier  rites  should 
remain  so  clearly  distinguishable  than  that  they  should  be 
here  and  there  overlaid  and  hidden. 

The  greater  mysteries,  the  Eleusinia  properly  so 
called,  began  in  the  autumn,  in  the  middle  of  the  month 
Boedromion.2  The  first  day  was  called  the  day  of  the  col- 
lection (aysppos)  or  assembling.  It  was  in  truth  a  carnival 
which  preceded  the  nine  lenten  days  of  the  regular 
celebration :  the  noise  and  tumult  on  this  day  contrasted 
strangely  with  the  silence  and  seriousness  which  were 
enjoined  upon  the  mystse  when  the  festival  had  begun. 
The  second  day  was  called  a\aSs  pva-TaL,  the  meaning  of 
which  has  been  explained.  The  sea  voyage  was  commuted 

1  Clement  of  Alexandria. 

2  The  month  which  commemorated  the  defeat  of  the  Amazons. 


240  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

to  a  mere  bathing  and  purification  in  the  sea.  The  third 
day  was  that  of  sacrifice  to  Demeter  in  the  temple  at 
Athens;  the  fourth,  also  of  sacrifices — of  h'rstfruits — to 
Dionysus  in  fris  temple  there ;  the  fifth,  of  sacrifices  to 
Asclepios — a  god  who  in  those  latter  days  had  come 
to  be  confounded  with  lacchos,  and  so  with  Dionysus. 
Then  on  the  sixth  day  was  formed  the  processional  cortege 
to  Eleusis,  carrying  along  with  it  the  image  of  lacchos, 
represented  as  a  boy  bearing  a  torch  like  the  Egyptian 
Horus.1 

These  initial  days  of  the  festival  reproduce  its  character 
in  the  earliest  times  when  peasants  and  shepherds  did 
service  to  the  universal  mother.  The  dress  of  the  mystse 
up  to  this  time  seems  to  show  a  consciousness  of  the 
antiquity  of  the  ceremonies  which  they  renewed.  This 
dress  was  a  simple  fawn  or  sheep  skin  (vsftpls).*  On  the 
sixth  day  this  costume  was  exchanged  for  a  more  civilised 
dress  to  be  worn  at  the  inner  mysteries.  During  these 
inner  mysteries  the  door  is  closed  to  us.  Only  the 
initiated  might  partake  in  them,  and  they  were  forbidden 
to  speak  of  what  they  had  seen  and  done.  The  eighth  and 
ninth  days,  which  ended  the  feast,  were  devoted  to  the 
initiation  (fjuvrja-is  and  sTTOTrrsla)  and  to  the  grand  dramatic 
performances  in  the  great  temple  at  Eleusis. 

But  though  we  have  been  left  outside  the  sacred 
enclosure,,  shall  we  be  far  wrong  if,  in  picturing  what  is 
doing  within  (while  making  allowance  for  the  difference 
of  age  and  the  difference  of  subject),  we  allow  our  minds 
to  wander  to  St.  Francis  and  his  brethren  assembled  from 

1  Horus  is  the  image  of  the  rising  sun,  in  contrast  with  Osiris,  who  is 
the  setting  sun,  or  the  sun  after  setting.    In  a  wider  sense— that  is  to  say, 
in  the  great  myth  of  the  death  of  Osiris — Horus  seems  to  be  taken  for  an 
image  of  the  new  year.      lacchos   also   undergoes   changes  of   meaning. 
Sometimes,  perhaps,  his  torch-bearing  image  was  deemed  only  the  morning 
star,  for  this  thought  is  expressed  in  the  apostrophe  in  the  '  Frogs '  - 

VVKTfpOV  TeXeTTJS  <p<0<T<[>6pOS  CffTTJp. 

2  Ncfyn's  is  of  course  properly  a  fawn  skin.     It  was  the  general  dress  of 
the  Bacchantes.    It  is  probable  that  a  sheep-skin  often  did  service  for  it. 


PEOCESSIONAL  CHAUNT.  241 

all  Italy,  with  their  torches  alight,  the  manger  prepared, 
with  the  ox  and  the  ass  in  their  stall,  the  hymn  rising  in 
the  still  night,  the  solemn  excitement  of  the  Saint  as  he 
administers  the  holy  mystery  of  the  mass  ? .  The  Greeks, 
too,  had  their  torchlight  procession,  their  veiled  figures 
moving  from  side  to  side  in  mimic  quest  of  the  lost 
Persephone ;  they  had  a  sort  of  eucharist  in  the  mystic 
drink  kykeon ;  and  for  a  processional  chaunt  let  us  listen 
to  an  ancient  chorus  which  has  come  down  to  us,  perhaps, 
from  these  very  Eleusinia : — l 

STROPHE. 

Over  the  wide  mountain  ways 
The  Holy  Mother  harrying  went, 
Through  woody  tracts  her  steps  she  bent, 
By  the  swift  river-floods'  descent, 
Or  where  upon  the  hollow  coast 
The  deep  sea- waves  their  voice  upraise, 
Loud  in  her  lament 
For  her  nameless  daughter  lost. 
And  the  Bacchic  cymbals  high 
Sent  abroad  a  piercing  cry. 
So  ever  in  her  car,  along 
By  yoked  wild  beasts  borne, 
She  seeks  the  virgin  who  was  torn 
From  her  virgin  choir  among. 
In  the  quest,  by  her  side, 
Fleet  as  storms  two  others  go — 
Artemis  of  the  bow, 
And  armed  Athene,  gorgon-eyed. 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Now  with  many  wanderings  worn, 
Her  daughter's  foot-prints,  hope-forlorn, 
The  goddess  stayed  from  following. 
The  snowy  Idsean  heights  she  passed, 
Pitifully  sorrowing, 
And  in  the  snows  herself  down  cast. 

1  Though  misplaced  in  the  Helen  of  Euripides. 


242  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

And  all  the  while  from  earth's  broad  plain 
Men  reap  no  more  the  golden  grain, 
Nor  for  the  flocks  green  pastures  grow, 
No  leafy  tendril  sprouts  again. 
She  will  the  human  race  o'erthrow, 
The  city  streets  to  desert  turn. 
No  victim  dies  ;  no  longer  burn 
The  altar  cakes  ;  the  fountains  now, 
By  dews  unfed,  no  longer  pour ; 
She  hath  forbid  their  crystal  flow — 
For  the  maiden  sorrowing  so 
Now  and  ever  more. 

It  is  evident  that  Persephone  was  naturally  little  con- 
nected with  thoughts  of  death,  of  the  next  world  and  of 
future  judgment.  The  allusions  to  her  myth  which  we 
have  gathered  together — and  these  are  the  most  important 
to  be  found  in  the  range  of  Greek  literature — the  remains 
of  the  Eleusinian  festival  which  have  come  down  to  us, 
make  it  clear  that  it  is  essentially  as  a  goddess  of  spring 
that  Persephone  was  worshipped,  and  that  the  mysteries 
speak  far  more  of  the  sorrows  of  Demeter  above  the  earth 
than  of  Persephone  beneath  it.  We  are  not  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  kingdom  of  Hades,  as  (for  example)  we  are 
in  the  myth  of  the  death  of  Balder,  a  story  which  in  other 
ways  nearly  resembles  the  myths  of  Persephone.  What 
likeness  is  there  between  this  queen  of  the  shades  and  the 
Norse  goddess  Hel,  whose  table  is  Hunger,  Starvation  her 
knife,  Care  her  bed,  and  Bitter  Pain  the  tapestry  of  her 
room  ?  Of  course  Persephone  was  acknowledged  as  a  ruler 
of  the  dead.  She  and  her  story  are  often  painted  upon 
cinerary  urns  and  upon  tombs.  Still  we  must  confess  that 
in  her  nature  there  is  far  more  of  Core,  the  maiden,  than 
of  Persephone ;  and  that  this  latter  name,  which  means 
light-destroyer,  is  as  little  appropriate  to  her  whole  character 
as  Apollo,  the  destroyer,  is  appropriate  to  the  sun  god.1 

1  Preller  has  discussed  at  some  length  and  with  much  learning  the 
probability  of  their  being  two  Persephones,  whose  diverse  natures  became 
united  into  one  (Demeter  u.  Persephone,  Introd.) 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  THE  SEED.  243 

Moreover,  where  the  Homeric  story  comes  to  an  end 
the  arrangement  was  that  Persephone  (albeit  she  is  called 
Persephone  there)  should  spend  two-thirds  of  the  year 
above  the  earth,  one-third  only  below  it.  To  the  author 
of  this  hymn  she  was  evidently  not  first  of  all  a  goddess 
of  death  ;  the  god  of  torment  has  not  yet  taught  her  how 
to  frown  and  how  to  chide.  I  think,  therefore,  that  we 
may  determine  without  much  hesitation  that  the  myth, 
and  the  mysteries  which  preserved  that  myth,  had  at  first 
only  a  very  slight  connection  with  theories  about  death 
and  a  future. 

Of  course  the  image  of  the  seed,  perishing  that  it  may 
rise  again,  speaks  with  a  natural  and  simple  appropriate- 
ness of  the  hope  which  may  accompany  the  consignment 
of  a  dead  man  to  the  all-nourishing  earth.  But  it  speaks 
only  through  the  voice  of  an  allegory ;  and  if  there  is  one 
thing  which  the  history  of  belief  teaches  us  more  clearly 
than  others,  it  is  that  allegories  of  such  a  kind  as  this,  the 
parables  of  nature,  are  not  among  the  first  lessons  which 
man  learns  from  her.  Man's  earliest  myths  are  direct 
histories ;  they  are  meant  at  least  to  tell  only  of  what 
happens  before  his  eyes  or  what  he  credulously  believes  to 
be  among  the  doings  of  the  physical  world.  They  are  not 
mystical  interpretations  from  these  actions,  or  images 
transferred  from  the  world  of  sense  to  the  region  of  feeling 
and  thought. 

It  is  not  the  less  true,  however,  that  we  can  trace  along- 
side of  the  simpler  and  earlier  story  of  De meter  and 
Persephone  the  growth  of  a  deeper  mystery  which  touched 
upon  thoughts  of  the  other  world.  And  when  the  goddess 
of  the  very  fulness  of  youth  and  of  spring  had  come  to  be 
confounded  with  the  ruler  over  the  shades,  men  had 
before  them,  no  doubt,  a  lesson  of  the  deepest  signifi- 
cance. '  In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  death.'  This  was 
now  the  texb  which  came  at  the  end  of  the  fasting  and 
feasting,  the  torchlight  processions  and  triumphant  hymns, 
and  the  nameless  'orgies  after  them.  Has  a  more  solemn 

B2 


244  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

trumpet  sound  of  warning  ever  rung  in  the  ears  of 
humanity  than  this  ?  Were  these  things,  then,  only  a  pro- 
logue to  a  dance  of  death  ?  How  changed  must  have 
become  the  mysteries  when  such  a  belief  had  found 
entrance ! 

The  world  seemed  not  the  place  it  was  before. 

We  wrongly  credit  the  Hellenes  with  a  complete  care- 
lessness of  their  destiny  in  a  future  state.  Such  may  have 
been  their  prevailing  tone ;  such  must  have  been  the 
prevailing  tone  of  a  life  so  vigorous  and  joyful  as  their  life 
was.  Greek  art  has  little  to  tell  us  of  thoughts  about 
another  world.1  But  there  must  always  have  been  a 
minority  who  were  not  indifferent  to  these  things ;  and  a 
little  before  the  historical  period  their  views  (upon  the 
speculative  side  at  least)  gained  a  measure  of  strength. 
Greece  had  been  long  connected  by  some  tie  with  Egypt, 
whose  inhabitants,  among  all  the  nations  of  antiquity, 
were  most  deeply  imbued  with  thoughts  about  death  and 
the  other  world.  Pythagoras,  however,  was  the  first  Greek 
writer  who  professed  to  have  drawn  much  from  the  wisdom 
of  the  Egyptians.  Another  source  to  which  Pythagoras 
and  some  of  his  followers  have  evidently  been  indebted  is 
Persia.  We  still  feel,  and  in  great  measure  through  the 
medium  of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  the  effects  of  Persian 
teaching  upon  that  great  primal  crux  of  religion  the 
origin  of  evil ;  a  teaching  which  has  spread  its  influence 
over  every  Western  land.  Before  the  second  age  of  Hel- 
lenic literature,  the  age  of  the  drama  and  of  lyrical  poetry, 
of  ^Eschylus  and  Pindar,  Greece  had  greatly  altered  irom 
its  first  simplicity.  Colonists  had  gone  out  far  and  near, 
had  settled  in  Italy,  in  Gaul,  and  on  the  far  shores  of  the 
Pontus  or  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nile.  Even  before  the  days 
of  contest  with  Persia,  Greek  soldiers  were  held  in  such 

1  It  would  have  had  more  to  tell  had  the  paintings  of  Polygnotus  come 
down  to  our  time.  He  covered  two  walls  of  the  Cnidian  pilgrims'  house 
(lesche)  at  Delphi  with  paintings  representing  the  world  of  shades  and  the 
punishment  of  the  wicked  (Paus.  x.  25-31). 


DECAY  OF  THE  HOMERIC  RELIGION.  245 

esteem  that  they  went  as  mercenaries  .to  the  capitals  of 
the  greatest  Asiatic  monarchies,  to  Nineveh  and  Babylon 
as  well  as  to  Thebes.  Greek  merchants  too  traded  with 
these  countries,  and  Greek  noblemen  and  philosophers 
frequented  their  courts. 

Many  questions  which  to  the  Eastern  mind  and  in  these 
time-worn  States  were  quite  familiar,  were  almost  new  to 
such  a  young  people  as  the  Hellenes ;  and  the  result  of 
this  intermixture  of  ideas  was  that  Greece  entered  upon 
its  philosophical  stage ;  its  mind  became  questioning  and 
sceptical,  which  had  once  been  simple  and  credulous.  As 
the  new  ideas  passed  from  State  to  Sta-te  they  saw  the  old 
Homeric  religion  crumble  beneath  their  tread.  And  as 
the  fixed  faith  of  former  times  decayed,  it  left  an  unsatis- 
fied craving  for  religious  emotion  of  all  kinds. 

The  mysteries  had  by  this  time  gained  every  requisite 
for  answering  to  feelings  so  excited.  They  were  very  old ; 
but,  as  the  origin  and  true  meaning  of  them  had  been 
forgotten,  they  could  not  be  exploded  as  easily  as  could 
the  plainer  teaching  of  the  Homeric  religion.  All  the 
stimulants  to  emotion  which  we  have  dwelt  upon  before, 
the  secresy  of  the  mystery,  the  tumultuous  excitement  of 
the  orgy,  were  to  be  found  within  them  ;  and,  in  addition 
to  these  motives,  they  now  added  a  new  one,  a  hint  con- 
cerning the  great  mystery  of  mysteries,  the  mingling  of 
death  with  life.  The  worship  of  ancestors  and  the 
sacrifices  to  the  departed  went  hand  in  hand  with  festivals 
of  flowers  and  the  honours  of  Dionysus.1  All  this  must 
have  given  to  the  ceremony  a  new  character.  It  must 

1  The  Anthesteria,  the  festival  of  flowers,  was  especially  set  apart  for 
honours  to  be  paid  to  the  dead  (see  Pauly,  Real-Enajvlopadie  s.  v. 
Mytteria  and  Bacchusi).  A  black  cock  is  the  victim  most  often  associated 
with  the  deities  of  the  under  world,  and  Persephong  is  very  frequently 
represented  (especially  so  upon  urns)  with  this  bird  in  her  hand.  Now  as 
the  cock  is  the  herald  of  morning,  it  belongs  rather  to  the  goddess  Core" 
than  to  the  infernal  deities.  It  is,  in  fact,  also  sacred  to  Apollo.  It  is 
probably,  therefore,  only  an  after-thought  which  makes  the  cock  a  black 
one,  a  change  corresponding  to  the  change  in  Persephone's  nature.  In 
the  Northern  mythology  three  cocks  are  to  proclaim  the-  dawn  of  the  Last 


246  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

have  thrown  over  the  festival  a  quite  new  air  of  sadness, 
which  was  very  different  from  the  emotion  with  which 
men  had  looked  upon  the  play  which  told  only  of  the 
death  of  earth's  greenery.  The  seeds  which  were  now 
planted  were  the  bodies  of  beloved  relatives ;  they  would 
not  spring  up  again  with  the  returning  year.  The 
mysteries  entered  upon  a  fresh  phase.  It  was  after  this 
transition  from  the  old  to  the  new  mysteries  that  art 
began  to  busy  itself  much  with  the  story  of  the  Great 
Goddesses.  The  artistic  representations  of  the  myth  occur 
frequently  on  cinerary  urns.  Demeter  herself  became  more 
a  picture  of  maternal  sorrow  than  she  should  naturally 
have  been.  In  some  of  the  statues  of  Demeter — as,  for 
example,  in  that. beautiful  one  from  Cnidus  in  the  British 
Museum-  -we  have  an  image  of  the  true  mater  dolorosa  of 
the  Greek  creed.  It  is  evident  that  the  mother  mourns 
for  her  daughter  as  for  one  dead.  Nevertheless  the  ulti- 
mate consolation  of  the  goddess  was  suited  to  teach  men 
that  they  need  not  sorrow  as  those  that  have  no  hope. 

The  teaching  concerning  the  expectation  of  a  future 
life  may  have  been  the  real  substance  of  the  latter-day 
mysteries ;  it  may,  I  mean,  have  been  the  special  subject 
on  which  silence  was  so  important — the  boon  of  know- 
ledge to  which  initiation  opened  a  door.  It  was  perhaps 
then,  when  this  doctrine  crept  into  the  Eleusinia,  that  the 
strict  oath  of  secresy  was  instituted.  On  the  first  day  of 
the  ceremonies  the  sacred  herald,  by  public  proclamation, 
enjoined  silence  and  reverence  on  the  initiated.1  After- 
wards those  who  were  about  to  witness  the  holy  drama 
were  required  one  by  one  to  swear  secresy.  Wherefore 
Demosthenes  says  that  those  who  have  not  been  initiated 
can  know  nothing  of  the  mysteries  by  report. 

Day,  that  great  Armageddon  of  Teutonic  religion  called  Ragna-rok,  the 
Doom  of  the  Gods.  Over  Asgard— Gods'  Home— a  golden  cock  crows,  over 
Man's  Home  a  red  cock,  and  over  Hell  a  cock  of  sooty  red. 

1  EvQwt'iv  xpb  Ka^iffraffQai  TO?S  TjfjLfTfpoiffi  x°P°^,  'Speak  reverently, 
and  stand  aside  from  before  our  holy  choir,'  as  Aristophanes  parodies  the 
ceremony. 


THE  HOPE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  247 

One  would  fain  know  why  the  mystse  deemed  secresy 
so  important.  Did  they  think  that  they  could,  as  it  were, 
keep  the  privilege  of  immortality  to  themselves  by  not 
divulging  too  freely  how  it  was  won  ;  that  the  envious 
upper  powers  might  withdraw  it  from  mankind  if  all 
rushed  in  to  share  the  gift  ?  !  Such  a  gift  might  well 
seem  a  strange  one  at  the  hands  of  the  jealous  gods,  as 
it  was  indeed  most  precious.  Would  ifc  be  wise  to  dis- 
tribute its  benefits  broadcast?  When,  owing  to  many 
circumstances,  but  chiefly  owing  to  this,  that  they  were 
the  mysteries  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  spiritual  nation- 
ality of  Hellas,  the  Eleusinia  became  the  mysteries  of 
Greece,  and  all  sought  admission  to  their  privileges,  this 
admission  was  at  the  outset  charily  granted.  At  first  only 
Athenian  citizens  might  '  partake  ;  '  anyone  born  out  of 
Attica  needed  to  get  himself  adopted  by  an  Athenian 
family.  Afterwards  initiation  was  allowed  to  all  Hellenes. 
'  If  these  things  contain  some  secret  doctrine  they  ought 
not  to  be  shown  to  all  at  no  more  cost  than  the  sacrifice 
of  a  common  pip;  :  '  so  Plato  complains  of  their  easy  ac- 
cessibility. Subsequently  the  same  rites  were  granted  to 
the  Romans.  Barbarians  were  always  excluded. 

Again,  one  would  like  to  know  what  ideas  the  initiated 
had  touching  that  future  for  which  they  were  in  some 
unknown  way  preparing  themselves.  I  should  not  think 
it  strange  if,  in  the  height  of  their  mystic  rites,  in  the 
midst  of  blazing  torches,  of  the  sounds  of  music,  of  wild 
cries  to  Dionysus, 


(f>ti)ff<f)6pO£  a 

in  the  gloom  of  night,  among  sacrifices  and  the  memories 
of  friends  not  long  since  departed,  the  enthusiast  became 
transported  to  think  that  he  was  no  longer  in  the  upper 

1  In  the  same  spirit  a  woman  of  the  Orkneys,  when  asked  to  repeat  a 
charm  which  she  had  for  driving  away  evil  spirits  at  night,  expressed  a 
fear  that  the  auditor  would  publish  what  she  told  him.  'And  then,'  said 
she,  «  all  the  gude  o'  it  to  me  wad  be  gane.' 


248  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

workaday  world,  but  had  really  been  carried  across  the 
dreaded  Styx  to  the  asphodel  meadows  and  the  banks  of 
the  forgetful  stream.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  during  the 
fever  of  those  darker  mystic  rites,  which  used  at  times  to 
sweep  over  the  people  like  an  epidemic,  and  which  cul- 
minated during  the  fourteenth  century  in  the  horrible 
Dance  of  Death,  it  was  common  enough  to  find  the  per- 
formers fully  persuaded  that  they  had  passed  the  limits  of 
mortality.  Sometimes  they  deemed  they  were  in  heaven, 
more  often  that  they  were  damned  in  the  world  below ; 
some  fancied  they  had  got  into  an  intermediate  state 
which  was  neither  purgatory  nor  heaven  nor  hell. 

Aristophanes,  in  his  wild  way,  shows  us  a  picture  of 
this  kind  of  belief.  The  portrait  is  distorted  certainly,  but 
not  perhaps  very  unlike  the  original.  The  picture  occurs 
in  the  '  Frogs '  when  Bacchus  is  preparing  to  descend  to 
the  lower  world,  in  order  to  fetch  thence  his  favourite 
Euripides.  And  before  making  the  journey  he  goes  to  ask 
the  way  of  Heracles  ;  for  Heracles,  as  we  well  know,  had 
been  more  than  once  into  the  land  of  shades.  The  hero  then 
forewarns  Dionysus  how,  when  he  has  descended  beneath 
the  earth  and  crossed  the  Styx,  he  will  find  himself  in  a 
new  world  in  no  way  distinguishable  from  that  where  he 
now  is — sunny  meadows  like  those  he  is  leaving,  and 
the  bands  of  the  initiate  singing  their  songs  to  Demeter 
and  Dionysus,  just  as  they  sing  them  at  the  mysteries. 
In  truth,  it  is  the  damnation  of  Peter  Bell  :— 

It  was  a  party  in  a  parlour, 

Crammed  just  as  they  on  earth  were  crammed ; 

Some  sipping  punch,  some  sipping  tea  ; 

And  by  their  faces  you  might  see 

All  silent  and  all  damned. 

There  is  a  fine  Aristophanes-like  touch  of  genius  in 
putting  this  force  upon  our  fancy.  In  the  original  play 
the  scene  would  be  imagined1  to  shift  for  a  moment 

1  The  change  of  scene  during  the  Greek  plays  was  never  more  than 
indicated  to  the  imagination,  not  forced  upon  it,  as  with  us. 


PICTURE  OF  THE  UNDER- WORLD  IN  THE  'FROGS.'      249 

to  the  banks  of  Styx,  and  to  show  Charon  and  his  boat ; 
and  then  the  meadows  which  men  could  actually  see  from 
their  seats,  and  the  sun-light  which  fell  upon  them  where 
they  sat,  would  be  transformed  (by  imagination)  tor  a 
scene  in  Hades. 

When  Dionysus  has  been  standing  a  little  while  in 
these  meadows  *  a  mystical  odour  of  torches  breathes 
round  him,'  and  behold  the  chorus  of  the  mystse  come  in 
calling  upon  lacchos — without  knowing  that  he  is  present 
— and  imitating  in  all  respects  the  .action  of  the  mystse 
upon  the  upper  earth,  though  the  chorus  which  they  sing 
is  (agreeably  to  the  character  of  the  comedy)  a  burlesque 
of  the  chaunts  which  might  have  been  heard  during  the 
Eleusinian  celebrations.1 

It  was  not,  however,  concerning  the  future  state  alone 
that  the  priests  of  the  mysteries  professed  to  impart  a 
revelation.  There  were  a  hundred  questions  undreamt  of 
of  yore  which  in  the  latter  days  began  to  press  for  solution 
upon  the  sharpened  intellect  of  the  Hellene.  His  age  of 
faith  had  gone ;  his  age  of  philosophy  had  begun.  As  the 

1  Keep  silence,  keep  silence ;  let  all  the  profane 

From  our  holy  solemnity  duly  refrain  ; 
Whose  souls  unenlightened  by  taste  are  obscure ; 
Whose  poetical  notions  are  dark  and  impure  ; 

Whose  theatrical  conscience 

Is  sullied  by  nonsense ; 

Who  never  were  trained  by  the  mighty  Cratinus 
In  mystical  orgies  poetic  and  vinous ; 
Who  delight  in  buffooning  and  jests  out  of  season, 
Who  promote  the  designs  of  oppression  and  treason ; 
Who  foster  sedition,  and  strife,  and  debate — 
Are  traitors,  in  short,  to  the  stage  and  the  State. 
Who  surrender  a  fort,  or  in  private  export 
To  places  and  harbours  of  hostile  resort 
Clandestine  assignments  of  cables  and  pitch ; 
In  the  way  that  Thorycion  grew  to  be  rich 
From  a  scoundrelly,  dirty  collector  of  tribute. 
All  such  we  reject  and  severely  prohibit. 

Frogs,  Frere's  translation.  This  admirable  translator  only  errs  occa- 
sionally by  throwing  too  strong  an  air  of  burlesque  over  Aristophanes'  lines. 
This  has  been  the  case  here. 


250  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

firm  belief  of  former  days  decayed  it  left  behind  an  un- 
satisfied craving  for  emotion  of  all  kinds — such  longings 
are  the  residuum  of  dying  creeds — and  these  the  mysteries 
were  by  their  nature  peculiarly  fitted  to  satisfy.  They 
alone  could  raise  men  out  of  themselves  until  in  the  ecstasy 
of  their  holy  rites  all  the  difficulties  of  life  and  of  thought 
seemed  to  fade  away.  Without  the  aid  of  much  definite 
dogma  they  formed  a  natural  counterpoise  to  the  growing 
scepticism  of  the  age. 

And  then  this  age  of  growing  scepticism  was  in  a  sense 
likewise  an  age  of  growing  morality.  The  notion  of  a 
moral  law,  at  least,  was  more  constantly  present  than  it 
had  been  of  old  time.  I  do  not  say  the  practice  was 
an  improvement  upon  that  of  bygone  days;  but  the 
development  of  man  had  reached  that  stage  when  right  is 
no  longer  a  thing  of  instinct  or  habit ;  when  righteous- 
ness is  seen  not  to  be  an  affair  of  this  or  that  occasion, 
but  to  stand  apart  from  all  occasion,  abstract  and  eternal. 
The  'categorical  imperative'  of  this  sense  of  right  and 
wrong  had  risen,  as  it  had  never  risen  before,  to  be  a  force 
in  the  world.  And  beside  this  power  that  of  the  old 
supernatural  beings  seemed  shadowy  and  unreal.  Even 
the  scoffer  Aristophanes  witnesses  to  this  important 
part  of  what  we  may  call  the  new  mysticism.  This  con- 
sisted not  of  religious  excitement,  still  less  of  physical 
excitement  or  orgies  only,  but  rested  in  some  measure 
upon  purity  of  morals.  It  may  seem  strange  that  a  form 
of  worship  which  still  included  many  obscene  rites — and 
tLe  Eleusinia,  in  common  with  all  other  mysteries,  seem  to 
have  done  this — could  have  set  itself  up  as  a  preacher  of 
morality :  it  must  seem  strange  to  us,  who  have  so  long- 
associated  purity  of  morals  in  this  particular  with  purity 
of  morals  in  every  relationship,  till  the  phrases  '  an 
immoral  life,'  <a  moral  man,'  have  gained  a  technical 
significance.  The  ancients  acknowledged  no  such  neces- 
sary interdependence  between  different  kinds  of  goodness. 
Excesses,  licensed  excesses,  as  they  were,  during  the  cele- 


NEOPLATONISM.  251 

bration  of  the  holy  rites,  did  not  afford  a  reason  why  the 
priest  should  refrain  from  warning  away  from  the  celebra- 
tion all  those  who  were  stained  with  usury  or  avarice,  or 
other  vices  of  bad  citizenship. 

But,  in  truth,  had  the  inconsistency  been  greater  than 
it  was,  it  would  not  be  a  thing  to  wonder  at  in  the  new 
mysteries.  All  the  simplicity  of  the  early  festival  had 
passed  away,  and  in  its  place  had  come  a  strange  compound 
of  definite  doctrine  and  of  fancied  revelation ;  of  unex- 
plained and  unexplainable  excitement;  of  some  hope  of 
the  future  combined  with  much  fear  of  the  mysterious 
upper  powers  who  were  but  symbolised  under  the  names 
of  Demeter  and  Hades,  of  Dionysus  and  Persephone.  Of 
such  kind  were  the  mysteries  of  historic  times. 

The  final  stage  of  Greek  religion — we  may  call  it  the 
third  stage,  that  of  Homer  being  the  first,  the  age  of 
j33schylus  and  Pindar  and  of  the  rise  of  philosophy  being 
the  second — was  that  during  which  Platonisra  faded  into 
Neoplatonism.  It  was  in  this  last  condition  that  the 
worship  of  Demeter  came  to  mingle  with  the  time-hon- 
oured mysteries  of  Isi&  The  likeness  between  the  two 
goddesses  had  been  acknowledged  from  of  old,  but  this 
similarity  was  not  the  result  of  a  transmission  of  religious 
ideas  from  Egypt  to  Greece.  It  was  only  a  likeness  which 
sprang  from  the  identity  of  the  impulse  which  produced 
both  mysteries.  It  was  not  until  the  days  of  the  Alexan- 
drian kingdom  that  the  Oriental  creeds  first  began  to  exer- 
cise a  strong  attractive  power  upon  Greek  thought. 

Whatever  effect  the  learning  and  the  religion  of  the 
Egyptians  may  have  had  upon  individual  historians,  such 
as  Herodotus,  and  upon  individual  philosophers  like  Pytha- 
goras, it  is  certain  that  it  had  no  deep  influence  upon  the 
Greek  belief  during  the  latter's  heyday  of  development. 
It  was  after  the  decline  of  belief  in  Greece  and  in  Eome 
that  men  were  found  seeking  new  forms  of  mystic  excite- 
ment in  the  dark  places  of  Oriental  creeds.  Before  the 
time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  Greece  had  no  doubt  absorbed 


252  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

something  of  the  philosophy  of  Persia  and  of  Egypt ; 
but  these  first  lessons  were  as  nothing  compared  to  those 
which  came  to  her  after  her  conquests  in  Asia  and  Africa 
had  been  completed.  In  this  old  world  the  energy  and 
culture  of  the  Greeks  transformed  the  dull  life  which  they 
found  there,  and  now  Greek  scepticism,  which  had  perhaps 
first  been  awakened  by  contact  with  the  East,  paid  back 
with  interest  all  it  had  received,  and  began  to  unmoor  the 
Asiatic  peoples  from  the  anchor  of  their  former  creeds. 
But  then,  again,  the  Hellenes  in  their  turn  received  in 
exchange  some  of  the  mystic  spirit  which  by  this  process 
they  had  set  free  to  wander  through  the  air.  Ifc  was  easier 
to  take  from  the  Asiatic  his  positive  belief  than  to  quench 
his  religious  nature  itself,  and  his  love  of  emotion  and 
mysticism.  It  was  through  the  marriage  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy with  Oriental  mysticism  that  there  sprang  up  in 
Alexandria  that  strange  system  of  teaching  to  which  has 
been  given  the  name  of  Neoplatonism. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  attempt  here  to  follow 
this  new  philosophy — so  unlike  the  calmly  reasoned 
systems  of  Plato  and  of  Aristotle — along  the  dark  laby- 
rinth through  which  it  chose  to  wander.  Inferior  as  Neo- 
platonism is  to  Greek  philosophy,  properly  so  called,  in 
intellectual  breadth  and  logical  capacity,  obscured  as  it  is 
throughout  by  a  turbid  atmosphere  of  mysticism  and  fan- 
tastic creation,  it  has  this  element  of  superiority  over  the 
older  philosophy,  that  a  keener  moral  sense  displays  itself 
everywhere  in  it.  It  possesses  a  certain  spiritual  insight 
which  to  the  other  would  have  been  impossible.  For  this 
keener  moral  perception  belonged  to  the  age  in  which 
Neoplatonism  sprang  up,  and  to  the  conditions  to  which 
the  development  of  human  thought  had  attained.  Yet,  as 
has  been  said,  this  spiritual  insight  was  not  incompatible 
with  any  actual  backsliding  in  the  sphere  of  positive  duty. 
There  needed  Some  One  who,  by  example  as  well  as  by 
precept,  should  vivify  and  bring  to  practical  fruit  the 
doctrine  of  right  for  its  own  sake ;  and  He  was  yet  unborn. 


MYSTERIES  OF  SERAPIS  AND  ISIS.  253 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why,  amid  all  this  confusion  of 
thought  and  the  kind  of  anarchy  which  spread  throughout 
the  sphere  of  moral  life,  now  that  the  emotions  were  left 
as  the  only  guide  to  men,  the  mysteries  should  have  held 
their  place  with  a  redoubled  tenacity,  and  exercised  a 
deeper  influence  than  they  had  ever  gained  before.  Now, 
not  the  Eleusinia  alone,  but  the  mystic  rites  of  almost 
every  nation  were  incorporated  into  the  ritual  of  the 
Greeks.  What  was  the  separate  fascination  which  each  of 
these  rituals  held  we  cannot  tell ;  but  we  can  well  under- 
stand that  the  times  were  favourable  to  those  orgies  of 
feeling,  that  intoxication  of  the  faculties,  which  all  the 
mysteries  alike  fostered,  and  in  which  all  had  their  root. 

It  is  from  the  time  of  the  New  Platonism  that  we 
must  date  the  growth  of  the  mysteries  of  Isis  and  Osiris 
into  that  form,  of  which  Plutarch  has  left  us  a  picture  in 
his  treatise  upon  those  two  divinities.  Nevertheless  the 
mysteries  of  Isis  and  Osiris  could  never  have  had  an 
importance  calculated  to  rival  the  Eleusinia  so  long  as 
the  Greek  supremacy  remained.  But  from  Greece — that  is 
to  say,  from  the  New  Greece,  whose  capital  was  Alexandria 
—these  mysteries  spread  to  Rome.  And  it  is  chiefly  as  a 
phase  in  the  history  of  Roman  belief  that  the  later  Isis 
worship  is  interesting  to  us. 

Under  the  Roman  supremacy  it  would  follow,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  the  Eleusinia  should  fall  consider- 
ably from  their  former  consequence.  Before  the  Roman 
supremacy,  though  much  of  Greek  intellect  and  enterprise 
had  deserted  the  original  Hellas,  though  Athens  had  been 
eclipsed  by  Alexandria,  yet  it  was  to  Greece  proper  that 
men's  thoughts  still  turned  with  supreme  reverence  as  to 
the  mother  of  all  wider  Greece.  They  honoured  its  ancient 
festivals,  its  Olympia,  its  Eleusinia,  as  the  institutions 
under  which  their  country  had  grown  so  great,  and  which 
were  most  truly  representative  of  Hellenic  nationality. 
But  all  this  was  changed  when  Rome  became  the  ruling 


254  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

power  of  the  world,  and  when  even  the  Greeks  put  off 
their  ancient  pride  of  race  to  be  enrolled  in  the  number 
of  her  citizens.  The  Eomans  had  no  mysteries,  properly 
so  called,  of  their  own.  They  had  had,  indeed,  in  old  days, 
like  all  other  nations,  their  festivals  of  the  spring,  such 
as  the  Lupercalia.  But  these  had  never  been  developed,  as 
the  Greeks  had  developed  the  Eleusinia,  into  a  mystery  of 
what  we  have  called  the  new  kind.  For  the  wants  of 
their  new  state  of  religious  excitement  their  native 
religious  system  was  therefore  unprepared.  One  would 
have  supposed  the  Eoman  natures  themselves  were  un- 
suited  to  this  phase  of  belief;  but  the  event  shows  the 
contrary.  Almost  every  kind  of  Oriental  mystery  found 
in  the  latter  days  of  the  Empire  its  enthusiastic  votaries 
in  Eome ;  but  none  more  so  than  the  rites  of  Osiris  and 
Isis,  or  of  Serapis  and  Isis ;  for  under  the  latter  names 
these  Egyptian  divinities  were  there  most  frequently 
honoured.1 

From  the  time  of  Alexander,  when  Greece  entered 
into  such  close  relations  with  Egypt,  and  Alexandria 
began  to  assume  the  supremacy  which  anciently  belonged 
to  Athens,  Isis  worship  began  to  spread  in  Greece, 
and  to  rival  in  some  degree  the  native  Eleusinian  rites. 
Traces  of  Isis  worship  are  found  in  Epirus,  in  Thespise 
in  Boeotia,  in  many  of  the  Greek  islands — as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Delos,  Chios,  and  Cyprus 2 — even  in  Athens 
itself.  To  Eome  this  worship  spread  through  the 
Greeks,  but  was  here  at  first  discountenanced  by  law. 
Apuleius  says — unless  he  has  been  misunderstood — that 
Isis  worship  was  known  in  Eome  in  the  time  of  Sulla 
the  Dictator.3  And  for  a  long  period  no  Isis  temple 
might  be  built  within  the  walls.  Even  in  the  time  of 


1  Serapis  was  originally  a  divinity  quite  distinct  from  Osiris  ;  but  the 
•two  came  to  be  united  into  one  being. 

2  See  Pauly,  Real-Encyc.  s.  v.  Isis  (L.  Georgii). 

*  Some  read  Sybilla  for  Sulla,  which  would  make  the  statement  useless 
as  a  datum. 


WORSHIP   OF  SERAPIS  AND  ISIS  IN  ROME.  255 

Augustus  this  prohibition  held  good,  though  there  was  in 
his  day  a  celebrated  temple  of  Isis  without  the  walls.1 
Agrippa  was  strongly  opposed  to  the  new  cult.  He 
forbade  the  worship  of  Serapis  or  of  Isis  within  a  mile  of 
the  city.  The  cult  was  not  received  into  general  favour 
until  the  time  of  the  Flavian  emperors.  Domitian  was  its 
special  votary  ;  his  life  had  once  been  saved  by  his  assum- 
ing the  disguise  of  a  priest  of  Isis.  Marcus  Aurelius 
built  a  great  temple  to  Serapis.  Commodus  was  priest  of 
this  cult ;  so  were  Pescennius  Niger  and  Caracalla.  Thus 
these  mysteries  went  on  growing  in  importance  till 
Christian  times.  It  is  strange  to  see  these  sober  Eomans 
throwing  themselves  as  wildly  as  the  rest  of  the  world  into 
this  wild  game ;  to  find  an  Apuleius — not  a  pious  nature, 
one  would  suppose — pawning  his  last  coat  to  buy  initiation 
into  the  rites  of  the  goddess.  There  was  not  much  belief 
at  this  time,  perhaps,  in  the  efficacy  of  the  rites  to  bestow 
immortality ;  no  more  than  there  was  any  longer  a  firm 
belief  in  the  existence  of  the  gods  commemorated.  Still 
the  ceremonial  remained,  though  the  myths  on  which  it 
was  founded  had  been  rationalised  and  the  belief  from 
which  it  once  drew  all  its  support  had  faded  away. 

We  can  only  guess  at  the  form  which  the  original 
myth  of  Isis  and  Osiris  wore,  or  at  the  rites  which  com- 
memorated the  myth  ;  though  we  have  every  reason  to 
believe  that  both  myth  and  ritual  followed  the  usual  course 
of  the  worship  of  the  earth  goddess.  Nevertheless  there 
are  in  Egypt  some  peculiar  characteristics  in  the  changes 
which  in  certain  seasons  pass  over  the  face  of  earth. 
For  there  the  whole  country  is  submerged  during  the 
Nile's  overflow,  and  all  life  there  is  for  a  time  destroyed. 
These  peculiar  effects  of  Nature  seem  to  be  reflected  in  the 
Osiris  myth.  Death  takes  in  it  a  larger  share  than  he 
does  in  the  corresponding  story  of  Persephone ;  and  what- 
ever note  of  triumph  may  accompany  the  conclusion  of  the 

1  Dion  Cassias,  liii.  2. 


256  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

history,  it  is  pitched  in  a  more  subdued  key  than  in  the 
Greek  legend. 

Plutarch,  writing  in  the  first  century  of  our  era,  just 
about  the  time  when  the  Isis  worship  at  Rome  was  in  its 
greatest  ascendant,  gives  an  account  of  the  Lsis  myth  and 
then  a  theological  explanation  of  it.  Both  are  charac- 
teristic of  the  last  stage  in  the  religion  of  antiquity.  The 
earlier  forms  of  the  story  which  related  the  death  of  Osiris, 
the  mourning  of  his  wife,  her  search  for  his  body,  and  the 
revenge  for  his  death,  are  lost  to  us.  In  the  hands  of  the 
Greek  the  Egyptian  tale  stands  evidently  deeply  indebted 
to  the  Demeter  myth.  The  main  differences,  however, 
remain.  The  lost  being  is  a  man  and  not  a  woman  (it  is 
so,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  in  the  Norse  version  of  the 
Demeter  story),  and  this  man  is  the  husband  of  the  earth 
goddess. 

Typhon  (Seth),  the  Genius  of  Evil — thus  the  story 
runs  in  Plutarch — made  a  conspiracy  against  the  life  of 
Osiris.  And  this  is  how  he  accomplished  his  purpose. 
He  challenged  the  god  to  see  if  he  could  get  himself 
into  a  certain  chest  which  he  had  previously  prepared, 
much  as  the  fisherman  in  the  Arab  tale  induced  the 
jinnee  to  show  his  power  by  returning  into  the  bottle  from 
which  he  had  just  escaped.  And,  like  that  Arab  fisherman, 
no  sooner  had  Typhon  got  Osiris  well  into  the  box  than  he 
clapped  down  the  lid  and  fastened  it,  and  pouring  melted 
lead  over  it  to  make  it  secure,  he  carried  it  away.  Then 
begin  Isis'  wanderings  in  search  of  her  husband.  At 
length  she  heard  that  the  chest,  which  was  now  Osiris' 
coffin,  had  been  taken  to  Byblos,  on  the  most  eastern 
mouth  of  the  Nile,  and  hidden  there  in  a  tamarisk  tree ; 
and  further,  that  the  tree  had  grown  all  round  the  chest, 
so  as  to  hide  it.  Isis  found,  when  she  got  to  Byblos,  that 
the  tamarisk  had  been  cut  down,  and  was  now  a  pillar  in 
the  king's  palace.  There  she  went  as  Demeter  to  the 
house  of  Keleos,  and  became  nurse  to  the  king's  son.  She 


STOEY  OF  THE  DEATH  OF   OSIEIS.  257 

let  him  suck  at  her  finger  instead  of  her  breast,  and  by 
night  she  placed  him  in  the  fire,  that  his  mortal  parts 
might  be  consumed  away.  But  the  mother  seeing  the 
child  all  aflame,  screamed  out,  and  by  so  doing  robbed  him 
of  the  immortality  which  would  have  been  his.  Then  the 
goddess  discovered  herself,  and  asked  that  the  pillar  which 
upheld  the  roof  should  be  given  to  her.  She  cut  open  the 
tree  and  took  out  the  chest,  wherewith  she  set  sail  to 
Egypt.  '  It  was  now  morning,  and  the  river  Phaedrus 
sent  forth  a  bitter  wind.  .  .  .' 

Isis  went  next  to  find  her  son  Horus,  leaving  the 
chest  in  an  obscure  and  desert  place.  But  Typhon,  as  he 
was  hunting  by  night  (see  how  the  day  myth  still  lingers  : 
Osiris  is  brought  back  in  the  morning  and  lost  again  at 
night),  came  perchance  upon  it,  and  knowing  what  it 
contained,  he  took  out  the  body  of  the  god,  tore  it  into 
fourteen  fragments,  and  scattered  them  hither  and  thither 
over  the  land.  Then  Isis  set  out  once  more  in  search  of 
her  husband,  travelling  in  a  boat  made  of  papyrus  reeds* 
.  .  .  When  she  met  with  any  one  of  the  scattered  remains 
of  Osiris  she  buried  it. 

After  these  things  Osiris  came  from  the  dead  and 
appeared  unto  Horus,  exhorting  him  to  avenge  his  father. 
And  Horus  fought  with  Typhon  and  slew  him. 

The  Eleusinia  were  devoted  in  about  equal  parts  to 
painting  the  sad  journeys  of  Demeter,  and  her  joy  at  again 
beholding  her  daughter.  Persephone  spends  a  third  of 
the  year  only  below,  two- thirds  upon  earth.  Joy  and 
sorrow  are  about  equally  tempered ;  this  is  the  lesson  of 
the  Demeter  myth.  But  in  the  Egyptian  mysteries  sorrow 
has  the  foremost  place.  Osiris  is  only  found  when  dead, 
and  found  only  to  be  lost  again.  And  though  Typhon 
too  is  slain,  and  Horus  victorious,  this  is  like  a  second 
part  added  on  to  the  original  story ;  it  cannot  bring  com- 
pensation to  the  wife  who  has  lost  her  husband.  And  so 
Plutarch  speaks  of  the  •  sober  air  of  grief  and  sadness ' 


258  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

which  appears  in  these  ceremonies.  This  was  a  cult  which 
had  grown  old  in  length  of  years.  The  gladness  of  heart 
which  inspired  all  the  mysteries  at  their  beginning  had 
passed  away,  and  a  sober  sadness  taken  its  place.  In  this 
instance,  moreover,  we  have  clearly  brought  before  us  the 
conflict  between  good  and  evil  which  in  the  earlier 
mysteries — not  yet  divorced  from  their  close  connection 
with  nature — nowhere  appears.  Eites  such  as  these  rites 
of  Isis,  pictured  things  more  solemn  than  the  changes  of 
the  year.  '  Her  mysteries,'  says  our  author,  *  were  insti- 
tuted by  Isis  to  be  the  image,  or  indication  rather,  of  what 
was  then  done  and  suffered,  as  a  right  consolation  to  those 
other  men  and  women  who  might  at  any  future  time  be  in 
a  like  distress.'  A  divine  being  suffering  that  her  suffer- 
ings should  be  a  consolation  to  humanity  !  Do  we  not 
here  seem  to  be  drawing  near  to  the  mysteries  of  Chris- 
tianity ? 

Of  the  same  late  character  is  Plutarch's  explanation 
of  the  story.  He  discusses  and  dismisses  other  former 
interpretations — which  do  indeed  preserve  some  features 
of  the  original  and  natural  origin  of  the  tale — in  favour  of 
his  own,  which  passes  beyond  and  includes  all  these.  Some 
have  said,  he  tells  us,  that  Isis  was  Egypt,  and  Osiris  the 
Nile,  and  that  Typhon  was  the  scorching  heat  of  summer, 
which  dried  up  the  stream  ;  or  that  Osiris  was  the  heaven, 
and  Isis  the  earth ;  that  he  was  the  sun  and  Isis  the  moon ; 
or  lastly,  that  the  god  was  the  principle  of  productiveness 
in  nature,  Isis  the  recipient  of  the  seed.  They  are  all  or 
none  of  these  things.  Osiris  is  the  principle  of  good  in 
nature,  or  in  the  soul  of  nature  and  of  men.1  Typhon  is 
the  opposite,  the  evil  principle.  The  great  Persian  theory 
of  the  dual  government  of  the  world  is  here  invoked,  and 
referred  directly  to  the  teaching  of  Zoroaster  and  the 
Magians.  '  There  are  two  beings  equally  concerned  in  the 
ordering  of  terrene  affairs,  a  good  and  a  bad  divinity,  a 

1  Vuxb  TOV  Uavrbs.     Isis  and  Osiris,  49. 


PLUTARCH'S  EXPLANATION   OF  THE  MYTH.  259 

god  and  a  dsemon.  Out  of  the  war  of  these  two  principles 
— for  they  are  eternally  united  and  yet  for  ever  striving 
one  to  subdue  the  other — is  produced  the  harmony  of  the 
world.'  As  Euripides  says,  '  good  and  evil  cannot  be 
parted,  though  they  are  so  tempered  that  beauty  and 
order  are  the  issue.5  .  .  .  And  this  opinion  has  been 
handed  down  from  theologians  and  legislators  to  the  poets 
and  philosophers,  an  opinion  which,  though  its  first 
author  be  unknown,  has  everywhere  gained  so  firm  and 
unshaken  a  credence  as  not  only  to  be  spoken  of  both  by 
Greeks  and  barbarians,  but  even  to  be  taught  by  them  in 
their  (  mysteries  '  and  sacrifices — tha.t  the  world  is  neither 
wholly  left  to  its  own  motions  without  some  mind,  some 
superior  reason,  to  guide  and  govern  it,  nor  that  it  is  one 
such  mind  only  that,  as  with  helm  or  bridle,  directs  the 
whole ;  but  that  all  the  irregularities  which  in  this  lower 
region  we  behold  are  due  to  the  two  great  and  opposing 
powers,  one  for  ever  trying  (as  it  were)  to  lead  us  to  the 
right  and  along  a  straight  path,  the  other  striving  as 
constantly  to  bring  us  in  the  contrary  direction  and  to 
error. 

Certainly  this  great  conflict  between  good  and  evil  is  a 
riddle  deep  enough  in  the  world's  history.  And  men  were 
at  this  time  beginning  to  learn  how  great  and  terrible  a 
mystery  it  was.  The  thought  of  it  haunted  all  the  philo- 
sophy of  the  days  in  which  Plutarch  wrote,  and  only 
partially  cleared  away  with  the  triumph  of  Christianity. 
This,  it  seems,  was  now  the  lesson  which  was  taught  by  the 
mystic  rites  of  Greeks  and  Romans.  Man  had  no  more 
to  do  with  the  fresh  returning  spring,  with  peasants' 
festivals,  or  with  harvest  homes.  What  meaning  would 
such  old  rites  have  had  for  the  city  life  and  the  elaborate 
civilisation  of  those  latter  days  ?  And  so  their  mysteries 
were  turned  into  epitomes  of  the  teaching  of  philosophers, 
or  the  speculations  of  moralists  on  the  origin  of  good  and 
evil.  To  this  the  rustic  festival  of  early  days  had  grown, 
to  this  its  final  stage. 

8  2 


260  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Then  came  Christianity  and  silenced — silenced  ap- 
parently— both  the  newer  mystic  cnlt  and  the  older  nature 
worship.  The  Mystics  themselves  became  Christians,  as 
Clemens  Alexandrinus  did,  and  burnt  what  they  had 
adored.  In  the  year  A.D.  391  the  great  temple  of  Serapis 
at  Alexandria  was  set  on  fire  by  order  of  the  government. 
And  about  the  same  time  the  monks  who  came  into 
Greece  in  the  wake  of  Alaric's  invading  army  put  a 
perpetual  finis  to  the  worship  of  the  great  goddesses  at 
Eleusis.  Yet  how  strange  is  the  tribute  to  the  vitality 
of  the  ancient  earth  worship  in  this  fact,  that  the  last 
blows  which  Christianity  levelled  at  its  rival,  paganism, 
should  have  struck  at  that  form  of  creed.  Zeus  and 
Apollo  and  Athene  were  far  less  dangerous  to  Christianity 
than  the  gods  who  had  in  reality  preceded  Zeus  and 
Apollo  and  Athene,  the  gods  of  farm,  and  village,  and 
the  cottage  fireside,  than  Pan  or  Demeter,  than  Perse- 
phone or  Dionysus.  This  is  perhaps  the  meaning  of  that 
legend  which  said  that  before  the  birth  of  Christ  a 
mysterious  voice  ran  along  the  shores  of  the  ^Egean,  pro- 
claiming as  a  herald  of  the  triumph  of  the  coming  creed, 
not  the  death  of  Zeus  or  of  Apollo  or  Athene,  but  that  the 
far  older  god  of  earth  and  earth's  fruitfulness,  that  Great 
Pan  himself  was  dead. 


THE  OTHER  WORLD.  261 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    OTHER    WORLD. 

§  1.  The  Under  World,  the  River  of  Death,  and  the  Bridge 
of  Souls. 

THERE  are  some  phases  of  past  thought — not  far  removed 
from  us  in  time — into  which  it  is  all  but  impossible  to 
gain  real  insight ;  difficulties  and  questions  which  were 
new  once,  but  have  now  been  settled  for  ever,  experiments 
not  long  ago  untried  which  have  now  become  a  matter  of 
daily  experience,  and  conditions  of  life  and  society  which 
have  not  long  passed,  and  yet  seem  to  us  infinitely  remote. 
But  there  are  some  questions,  though  they  have  been 
asked  continually  through  all  the  past  history  of  man, 
and  though  men  will  never  cease  from  asking  them  as 
long  as  the  human  race  endures,  which  seem  still  as  far 
from  solution  as  they  ever  were :  there  are  some  future 
experiences  upon  which  mankind  is  always  speculating,  and 
which  yet  can  never  become  present  experiences  so  long 
as  we  are  what  we  are — those  questions,  I  mean,  which 
concern  the  destiny  of  man  after  death,  the  character  of 
his  journey  to  the  undiscovered  country,  and  the  sort  of 
life  he  will  lead  when  there. 

Some  would  dissuade  us  from  the  continuance  of  these, 
so  they  deem  them,  unfruitful  speculations ;  but  it  is  very 
certain  that  man  must  change  his  nature  before  they  will 
lose  their  fascination  for  him ;  and  till  he  does  so  change 
he  can  never  read  without  sympathy  the  guesses  which 
past  generations  of  his  kind  have  made  toward  the  solution 
of  the  same  problems.  To  them,  indeed,  these  solutions 


262  OUTLINES  OF  PIUMITIVE  BELIEF. 

have  lost  their  interest,  as  ours  will  noon  do  for  us.  What- 
ever lot  that  new  condition  may  hold  in  store,  eternal 
pleasure  or  eternal  pain,  they  have  tried  it  now ;  whatever 
scene  is  concealed  by  the  dark  curtain,  they  have  passed 
behind  it.  This  is  certain ;  as  that  we  soon  must.  So 
long,  however,  as  we  remain  here  upon  this  upper  earth, 
we  must  be  something  above  or  below  humanity  if  we 
refuse  ever  to  let  our  thoughts  wander  towards  the  changes 
and  chances  of  another  life. 

Not,  indeed,  that  questions  of  this  sort  have  ever  had 
for  the  majority  of  men  in  one  age,  or  for  the  collective 
mass  of  humankind,  an  all-absorbing  interest.  If  we 
choose  to  look  closely  into  the  matter,  and  to  judge  of 
men's  opinion  as  it  is  displayed  in  their  actions  (the  only 
real  opinion),  we  shall  at  first,  perhaps,  be  struck  by  the 
slenderness  of  the  belief  which  they  possess  in  a  future 
state.  For  it  is  slight  compared  with  their  '  notional  as- 
sent,' that  which  they  think  they  believe  concerning  it. 
With  the  majority  of  us  faith  upon  this  matter  is  at  best 
but  shadowy  ;  of  an  otiose  character,  suitable  for  soothing 
the  lots  of  others,  arid  sometimes,  alas  !  called  into  requi- 
sition to  alleviate  the  stings  of  conscience  for  the  pain 
which  our  own  misconduct  or  neglect  has  introduced 
therein. 

It  will  be  said  that  there  was  once  a  time  when  one 
aspect,  at  any  rate,  of  the  future,  its.  terror,  was  realised 
with  an  intensity,  and- exercised  an  influence  over  life  and 
conduct,  such  as  are  unknown  in  our  days.  Perhaps  this 
was  so:  certainly  these  times  were  not  ordinary  ones. 
33ut  in  our  estimate  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  are,  I  think, 
apt  to  lay  too  much  stress  upon  the  force  which  faith  had 
over  the  men  of  those  days.  We  forget  the  other  side 
of  the  picture.  There  was  on  the  one  hand  the  ortho- 
dox teaching;  and  whenever  the  Church  moulded  com- 
pletely the  popular  belief,  this  world  was  seen  as  if  covered 
beneath  a  pall,  and  the  next  shrouded  in  still  darker 
gloom.  As  the  orthodox  or  monastic  view  of  life  was  like- 


OF   THE 

vrERSm 


BELIEF  AND   UNBELIEF.  263 

wise  the  literary  one,  the  picture  of  the  world  as  it  was 
drawn  by  the  Church  has  come  down  to  us  almost  unre- 
lieved by  brighter  colours.  There  was,  however,  another 
spirit  at  work,  the  spirit  of  the  laity ;  and  for  laymen  at 
least,  whatever  priests  might  say  to  the  contrary,  life  had 
still  its  pleasures,  and,  in  the  indulgence  of  these,  thoughts 
about  the  next  world  were  then,  as  now,  laid  to  rest. 
Beside  the  deeper  course  of  the  main  stream  of  belief  this 
under  current  may  be  distinctly  traced,  a  rivulet  of  ancient 
paganism  ;  whether  this  were  the  genuine  heathenism  of 
new-converted  lands,  or  the  sort  of  paganism  or  atheism 
of  countries  which  in  comparison  with  their  times  were 
almost  over-civilised — such  countries,  -for  example,  as 
Italy  or  Provence.  Provence  began  a  kind  of  renaissance 
of  its  own  before  the  time  for  a  renaissance  had  come ;  it 
ga*ve  a  new  direction  to  the  impulses  of  chivalry,  it  fos- 
tered la  gaie  science,  and  sent  out  its  companies  of  trouba- 
dours, plying  their  art  to  call  men  away  from  thoughts  of 
the  Day  of  Doom,  and  to  drown  with  their  songs  the 
perpetual  chaunting  of  masses  and  the  toll  of  bells.  We 
cannot  overlook  these  elements  in  mediaeval  life.  The 
Gothic  cathedral  is  a  lasting  memorial  of  the  genius  of 
Catholicism;  but  if  we  examine  it  closely,  and  look  in 
neglected  corners  or  at  the  carvings  beneath  the  seats,  we 
shall  see  strange  sights,  not  provocative  to  holy  meditation. 
Dante  strikes,  no  doubt,  the  truest  note  of  his  age ;  but  in 
the  pauses  of  his  stately  music  you  may  hear  the  laughter 
of  Boccaccio. 

In  truth,  that  term  '  dark  ages  '  overrides  our  fancy  ; 
'  we  can  never  hear  mention  of  them  without  an  accom- 
panying feeling,  as  though  a  palpable  obscure  had  dimmed 
the  face  of  things,  and  that  our  ancestors  wandered  to 
and  fro  groping.'  l  On  the  other  hand,  neither  have  the 
most  light-hearted  and  sceptical  of  people  been  able  to 
shut  their  eyes  utterly  to  the  warnings  of  death.  We  are 

1  Ella. 


264  OUTLINES   OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

wont  to  think  of  the  Greeks  as  a  people  of  just  such  a 
light-hearted  and  in  a  fashion  sceptical  temperament, 
and  to  contrast  the  spirit  of  Hellas  with  the  spirit  of 
mediseval  Europe.  Truly  little  thought  of  death  or  of 
judgment  after  death  seems  to  disturb  the  serenity  of 
Greek  art — such  as  that  art  has  come  down  to  us. 
Thanatos  (Death)  is  scarcely  to  be  found ; l  even  the 
tombs  are  adorned  with  representations  of  war  and  the 
chase,  and  with  figures  of  the  dancing  Hours.  And  yet 
we  know  that  Greek  art  was  not  without  its  darker  side. 
It  had,  like  mediaeval  poetry,  its  Dante — Polygnotus, 
namely — who  adorned  the  pilgrims'  house  at  Delphi  with 
frescoes  representing  the  judgment  and  the  tortures  of 
the  damned — a  Greek  Campo  Santo.2  These,  had  they 
been  preserved,  would  have  given  us  a  different  idea  of 
the  Hellenic  mind  in  the  presence  of  the  fact  of  mo%r- 
tality,  and  shown  us  how  easily  we  are  led  to  exaggerate 
the  divergence  in  thought  between  different  nations  and 
different  times. 

Where  no  knowledge  could  be  gained  from  experience, 
man  has  been  driven,  in  solving  such  a  question  as  that 
of  the  character  of  our  future  life,  to  interpret  the  alle- 
gory of  nature  ;  and  his  interpretations  have  not  varied 
very  much  from  age  to  age.  Wherefore  it  is  that,  as  far 
back  as  we  can  test  the  belief  of  men,  we  find  certain 
theories  touching  the  fate  of  the  soul  after  death,  which 
represent  in  the  germ  at  least  the  prevalent  opinions  of 
our  own  day,  and  out  of  some  of  which  our  opinions  have 
arisen. 


1  It  has  been  suggested  that  among  a  group  of  figures  sctilptured  upon 
the  drum  of  a  column  brought  from  the  Ephesian  Artemisium,  we  have  a 
representation  of  Thanatos.    The  figure  is  that  of  a  boy,  young  and  comely 
as  Love,  but  of  a  somewhat  pensive  expression  ;  upon  his  thigh  a  sword  is 
girt,  such  as  Eros  never  wears  ;    his  right  hand  is  raised,  as  though  he 
were  beckoning.     With  him  stand  Deuaeter  and  Hermes,  both  divinities 
connected  with  the  rites  of  the  dead. 

2  Pausanias,  x.  28. 


THE   UNDERGROUND  HOUSE  OF  THE  DEAD.  265 

Belief  sprang  up  at  once  from  the  mere  effort  of  lan- 
guage to  give  expression  to  the  unseen.  Casting  about 
for  a  name  for  the  essential  part  of  man,  the  soul  of  him, 
and  using  for  the  abstract  conception  such  a  physical 
notion  as  seemed  least  remote  from  the  former,  language  at 
first  identified  this  soul  with  the  breath.  All  the  Aryan 
tongues  give  us  examples  of  this  identification.  The 
Greek  ^v^ij,  spiritus,  is  allied  to  ^v^co,  to  breathe ;  in 
Sanskrit  we  have  dtman,  soul,  in  Latin  animus,  anima — 
all  three  derived  from  original  roots  an,  anti,  breath,  and 
allied  to  the  Greek  do),  arj/ju,  as  well  as  to  aadpa,  a  heavy 
breathing.  Spiritus  has  the  same  meaning:  it  is  allied 
to  the  Slavonic  pachu,  odour ;  pachati,  to  blow.  The  Ger- 
man Geist  and  our  ghost  are  probably  in  part  onomato- 
poetic,  and  suggest  the  idea  of  breath  by  their  very  sound. 
Like  the  vital  spark  itself,  the  breath  is  seen  to  depart 
when  the  man  dies.  But  whither  has  it  gone  ?  This  is 
the  first  question  concerning  the  habitat  of  the  soul; 
and  the  purely  negative,  purely  scientific  answer  is  but  to 
confess  ignorance,  and  to  say  that  the  breath  has  dis- 
appeared. The  answer  actually  given  advances  a  little 
way  beyond  this  toward  the  beginning  of  a  myth.  The 
breath  has  gone  to  the  '  unseen '  or  the  '  concealed 
place;'  as  the  Greeks  said  to  Hades  (d-siBrjs),1  as  our 
Norse  ancestors  said  to  Hel.2  Thus  out  of  mere  migra- 
tion we  have  the  beginning  of  a  myth  ;  the  spirit  becomes 
something  definite,  and  the  place  it  has  gone  to  is  partly 
realised. 

This  Home  of  the  I>ead,  this  '  unseen  '  or  '  concealed  ' 
place,  must  needs  be  dark ;  and  it  is,  of  course,  natural 
that  there  should  be  much  confusion  between  the  home  of 
the  living  soul  and  that  of  the  dead  body,  so  that  the 

1  It  is  true  that  another  derivation  has  been  given  for  Hades.     It  has 
been  associated  with  the  Sanskrit  Aditi,  the  boundless,  which  may  be  a 
name  for  earth  (cf.  Prithivi),  though  I  rather  believe  it  (as  Max  Miiller 
says  it  is)  a  name  for  the  heaven  or  the  expanse  of  the  dawn.     See  Maury 
Religions  de  la  Grece,  ii.  278- 

2  Hel  from  Icl.  at  helja,  to  hide. 


266  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

former  becomes  more  or  less  identified  with  the  grave. 
In  a  more  expanded  sense  the  Home  of  the  Dead  may  be 
thought  of  as  a  vast  underground  kingdom  to  which  the 
grave  is  but  the  entry.  It  was  always  imagined  that  if 
the  dead  man  did  return  to  the  upper  world  he  came 
through  this  passage  and  out  by  the  grave's  mouth ;  and, 
apparently,  it  was  generally  thought  that  he  could  return 
no  other  way.  It  was  also  deemed  that  for  awhile — for 
a  lesser  or  a  greater  while — the  dead  man  lingered  about 
the  funeral  mound:  thus  soon  after  death  the  man's 
ghost  might  be  seen,  but  not  (generally)  long  after  death. 
Along  with  the  earliest  traces  of  human  burial  we  find 
tokens  of  the  custom  of  placing  food  and  drink  with  the 
dead  body.  The  object  of  this  may  have  been  to  furnish 
the  ghost  with  the  means  for  beginning  his  journey  to  the 
underground  kingdom,  and  so  of  hastening  his  departure 
from  the  neighbourhood  of  living  men ;  for  it  is  certain 
that  there  was  nothing  of  which  primitive  man  stood  more 
in  dread  than  of  the  appearance  of  a  ghost.  In  the  re- 
mains of  the  second  Stone  Age  we  find  proofs  that  the 
departed  were  pacified  by  such  like  gifts  of  food  and 
drink ;  they  were  in  these  days  further  honoured  by  the 
erection  of  immense  monumental  tombs,  which  even  now 
present  the  appearance  of  small  hills.  The  pyramids  of 
Egypt  are  a  relic  of  the  same  custom  of  mound- raising 
among  primitive  men.  At  the  mouth  of  the  Stone  Age 
grave  mounds  was  held  the  death  wake  or  funeral  feast, 
traces  of  which  are  still  discoverable.  Within  the  grave 
was  placed  the  body  of  the  hero,  or  chieftain,  surrounded 
by  implements  of  war  and  of  the  chase,  by  food  and  drink, 
and  also  by  dead  captives  and  wives. 

It  is  impossible  for  us  to  pronounce  with  certainty 
what  was  the  original  intention  of  rites  such  as  these, 
which  continue  quite  late  in  the  development  of  civilisa- 
tion. Was  it  supposed  that  the  body  itself  came  to  life 
and  required  the  food  which  was  left  for  it  in  the  grave 
before  it  arrived  at  its  last  home  ?  Had  it  a  journey  to 


THE  GEAVE  THE  ENTBANCE  TO  IT.  267 

make  to  get  to  the  underground  land?  Was  the  food 
intended  only  for  that  intermediate  condition  of  travel  ? 
Before  we  have  any  means  of  testing  men's  belief  upon 
these  points,  the  rites  which  might  have  expressed  it  have 
become  in  a  great  degree  symbolical,  and  their  simpler 
meaning  has  been  lost.1 

The  prehistoric  grave  mounds  witness  in  a  curious 
way  to  the  prevalent  notion  that  the  grave  mouth  was  the 
gate  by  which  ghosts  returned  to  '  walk '  the  earth.  To 
prevent  these  apparitions  the  men  of  prehistoric  days  had 
recourse  to  a  strange  practical  method  of  exorcism. 
They  strewed  the  ground  at  the  grave's  mouth  with  sharp 
stones  and  broken  pieces  of  pottery,  as  if  they  thought  a 
ghost  might  have  his  feet  cut,  and  by  fear  of  that  be  pre- 
vented from  returning  to  his  old  haunts.  For  unnum- 
bered ages  after  the  days  of  the  mound  builders  the 
same  custom  lived  on,  whereof  we  see  here  the  rise. 
Turned  now  to  an  unmeaning  rite,  it  was  put  in  force  for 
the  graves  of  those,  such  as  murderers  or  suicides,  who 
might  be  expected  to  sleep  uneasily  in  their  narrow 
house.  This  is  the  custom  which  is  referred  to  in  the 
speech  of  the  priest  to  Laertes  in  «  Hamlet.'  *  Ophelia  had 
died  under  such  suspicion  of  suicide  that  it  was  a  stretch 
of  their  rule,  says  the  priest,  to  grant  her  Christian 
burial. 

And  but  the  great  command  o'ersways  onr  order, 
She  should  in  ground  unsanctified  have  lodged 
To  the  last  trumpet:  for  charitable  prayers 
Shards,  flints,  and  pebbles  should  be  thrown  on  her. 

The  grave  becoming  in  this  belief  ipso  facto  the  en- 
trance to  Hades,  burial  was  necessary  for  admittance  into 
the  other  world.  The  soul  who  had  not  undergone  this 

1  The  funeral  feast  held  in  honour  of  the  dead  (of  which  the  twenty- 
third  book  of  the  Iliad  gives  a  good  example  for  prehistoric  days)  is  of 
course  only  a  relic  of  the  feast  in  which  the  dead  partook.  Of  a  still 
earlier  form  of  the  ceremony  we  have  fine  examples  in  the  tomb  paintings 
of  Egypt.  At  these  the  dead  is  present. 


268  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

rite  flitted  about  aimlessly  around  the  spot  where  his 
shell,  the  body,  lay.  This  is  the  superstition  concerning 
a  murdered  man.  By  the  'polluted  covert'  the  ghost 
stands,  to  show  where  the  horrid  deed  was  wrought.  By 
virtue  of  an  easy  transfer  of  ideas  any  other  form  of  inter- 
ment— burning  of  the  dead  when  that  was  customary — 
became  also  the  needful  passport  to  the  land  of  shades. 
Among  the  Homeric  heroes  we  see  every  effort  made  to 
secure  the  body  for  this  purpose  ;  and  when  the  corpse  of 
Hector  cannot  be  recovered,  some  faint  image  of  the 
funeral  rite  is  performed  by  burning  his  clothes. 

This  belief,  too,  explains  why  Elpenor,  the  comrade  of 
Odysseus,  is  found  by  the  latter,  when  he  goes  to  visit  the 
home  of  Hades,  still  wandering  on  the  hither  side  of 
Styx ;  and  why  Patroclus'  ghost  comes  to  the  bedside  of 
Achilles,  and  reproaches  him  that  his  funeral  rites  have 
not  yet  been  performed.  In  truth,  the  belief  in  the  im- 
portance of  funeral  rites  is  too  widespread  and  too  well 
known  to  need  further  illustration  in  this  place.1 

Among  those  nationalities  with  whom  the  belief  in  an 
underground  kingdom  was  most  in  force,  the  home  and 
the  condition*  of  the  dead  must  alike  seem  dark  and  cheer- 
less. Enough  of  the  old  belief  concerning  the  vanishing 
breath  remained  to  make  the  future  itself  shadowy ;  and 
so  perhaps  it  was  a  place  of  emptiness  and  hollowness,  a 
no-life  rather  than  one  of  positive  pain,  that  made  the 
early  hell.  '  The  senseless  dead,  the  simulacra  of  mortals,' 
Homer  calls  the  shades ;  and  the  same  thought  is  ex- 
pressed by  Isaiah  when  he  says — 

Sheol  shall  not  praise  Thee,  Jehovah, 

The  dead  shall  not  celebrate  Thee  ; 

They  that  go  down  into  the  pit  shall  not  hope  for  Thy  truth  : 

The  living,  the  living  shall  praise  Thee,  as  I  do  this  day.2 

1  So  Virgil: 

4  Haec  omnis  quam  cernis  inops,  inhumataque  turba  est ; 
Portitor  ille  Charon  ;  hi  quos  vehit  unda  sepulti.' — ^En.  vi.  325. 

2  Isaiah  xxxviii.  18,  19  ;  cf.  also  Genesis  xxxvii.  35, 1  Samuel  xxviii.  19. 


PERSONIFICATION  OF  THE  UNDER  WORLD.  269 

But  when  this  under  world  takes  a  form  of  greater 
distinctness,  and  men  begin  to  try  and  localise  it  beneath 
particular  spots  of  the  earth,  they  imagine  more  definite 
roads  leading  to  it ;  and  names,  such  as  Styx  and  Avernus, 
which  were  purely  mythical,  assume  a  geographical  cha- 
racter. Approaches  of  this  kind  to  the  realm  of  dark- 
ness are  the  Hollenthaler,  hell's  glens,  and  the  like,  of 
which  we  meet  so  many  in  Europe.  All  very  d^ep  caves 
and  abysses  are  believed  to  lead  thither.  In  a  more 
imaginative  way,  and  in  the  language  of  a  finer  poetry, 
the  downward  road  is  spoken  of  as  the  'Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death.' 

But  no  living  man  ventures  to  the  bottom  of  this  dark 
valley ;  or  if  he  do  go  he  shall  scarcely  return.  Tlie 
secrets  of  that  place  are  well  kept.  And  great  was  of  old 
the  fear  of  the  infernal  deities,  lest  men  should  pry  into 
their  prison  house.  Wherefore  Hades  cried  aloud  when 
Poseidon  was  shaking  the  earth,  lest  that  god  should  rend 
it  asunder  and  disclose  his  mansions  to  the  day — '  man- 
sions dolorous  fearful  which  the  gods  themselves  loathe.' 

The  inanimate  place,  the  very  cavernous  hollow,  be- 
comes anon  gifted  with  life ;  and  the  mere  privation  of 
an  earlier  faith  grows  into  '  a  more  awful  and  confounding 
positive.'  Hell  becomes  a  being.  Most  likely  this  being 
was  at  first  endowed  with  the  figure  of  some  ravenous 
animal,  some  bird  or  beast  of  prey,  a  wolf,  a  lion,  a  dog,  a 
hawk,  as  the  experience  of  each  individual  people  might 
direct.  Greek  mythology  had  its  Cerberus,  Norse  mytho- 
logy its  Fenris  wolf.  In  a  mythology  a  shade  more  elabo- 
rate the  same  thing  is  represented  by  imaginary  creatures 
— dragons,  griffins,  or  what  not.  The  dragons  which  we 
meet  with  in  mediaeval  legend  were  once,  most  of  them,  in 
some  way  or  other,  embodiments  of  Death.  At  the  door 
of  Strassburg  Cathedral,  and  in  one  of  the  stained  windows 
within,  the  reader  may  see  a  representation  of  the  mouth 

Sheol  is  misrendered  '  grave  '  in  our  version.     It  means  '  the  place  of  the 
dead,'  not  the  place  of  dead  bodies  only. 


270  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  Hell,  in  the  form  of  a  great  dragon's  head  spouting 
flame. 

Anyone  who  is  acquainted  with  mediaeval  sculptures 
and  paintings  knows  how  common  it  is  to  find  this  kind 
of  imagery,  which  exists  in  virtue  of  the  reversion  of 
popular  mythology  to  primitive  forms  of  thought. 

Of  a  like  origin  with  this  hell  dragon  are  most  of  the 
fabulous  monsters,  half  human  and  half  animal,  whom  we 
meet  in  Greek  my thology— the  harpies,  for  example,  the 
sirens,  or  the  gorgons.  If  the  underground  kingdom  is 
seen  in  the  form  of  a  man,  he  is  a  monstrous  man,  such  as 
the  ogre  of  our  nursery  tales.  This  ogre  is  a  descendant 
of  the  Orcus  of  classical  times,  and,  I  doubt,  he  better 
shows  us  the  primitive  conception  of  that  being  than  do 
any  representations  in  art  of  the  god  of  hell. 

No  people  have  painted  the  destructive  aspect  of  death, 
the  negative  theory  of  a  future,  with  a  sharper  outline  than 
did  the  Greeks  and  Hebrews.  What  a  contrast  to  the" 
teaching  of  modern  religions  is  the  line — 

They  that  go  down  into  the  pit  shall  not  hope  for  Thy  truth. 

Yet  Greeks  and  Hebrews  have  not  abstained  from  en- 
dowing the  *  unseen  place  '  with  some  personality.  In 
Greek  literature  we  may  almost  trace  the  processes  by 
which  Hades,  from  being  impersonal,  becomes  personal, 
and  then  returns  once  more  to  be  merely  a  place.  Of  a 
man  dying  it  is  not  seldom  said  in  Homer  that  'hateful 
darkness  seized  him  : ' ]  here  was  a  half-personality  which 
was  calculated  soon  to  lead  to  a  complete  one.  Hades  is 
accordingly  generally  a  person  in  Homer.  The  Icelandic 
goddess,  Hel,  went  through  the  same  transformation  that 
we  can  trace  in  the  case  of  Hades.  From  being  the  con- 
cealed place  she  grew  to  be  the  queen  of  the  dead,  and 
then  again  degenerated  to  be  only  the  home  of  the  dead. 
Of  the  thousand  other  images  of  horror  to  be  met  with  in 

1  B.g.  II  v.  45. 


THE  JOURNEY  OF  THE  SOUL.  271 

different  creeds — devouring  dragons,  fire-breathing  ser- 
pents, or  dogs  who,  like  Cerberus,  threaten  those  who  are 
journeying  to  the  underground  kingdom — the  most  part 
can,  from  their  names,  be  shown  to  have  arisen  out  of 
the  merely  negative  images  of  death,  the  '  unseen/  the 
'  coverer,'  the  '  concealer,'  the  '  cave  of  night.' 

In  contrast  with  all  these  myths  stand  those  which 
after  death  send  the  soul  upon  a  journey  to  some  happy 
home  of  the  departed,  to  a  paradise  which  is  generally 
believed  to  be  in  the  west.  If  the  first  are  myths  of  hell, 
the  second  series  may  be  fairly  described  as  myths  of 
heaven.  Nor  can  it  be  clearly  proved  that  the  more 
cheerful  view  of  the  other  world  is  of  a  later  growth  in 
time  than  the  one  which  we  have  been  describing,  seeing 
the  evidence  which  the  Stone  Age  interments  seem  to  offer 
upon  this  point.  For  if  the  dead  man  had  need  of  his 
weapons  of  war,  of  his  captives  and  his  wives,  his  life  to 
come  could  not  have  differed  for  the  worse  from  his  life 
here.  And  if,  among  historic  peoples,  the  earlier  Hebrews 
were  the  exponents  of  the  gloomy  Sheol,  the  most  hopeful 
picture  of  the  soul's  future  finds  expression  in  the  ritual 
service  of  the  Egyptians.  To  come  nearer  home,  among 
all  those  peoples  with  whom  we  are  allied  in  blood,  the 
Indo-European  family  of  nations,  we  shall  find  the  traces 
of  a  double  belief,  the  belief,  on  the  one  hand,  in  death  as 
a  dim  underground  place,  or  as  a  devouring  monster,  and 
the  contrasting  belief  in  death  as  a  journey  made  towards 
a  new  country  where  everything  is  better  and  happier  than 
on  earth. 

There  is  nothing  distinctively  Aryan  in  the  notion  of  a 
journey  of  the  soul  after  death.  Every  nation  has  possessed 
it,  and  almost  every  people,  moreover,  has  associated  it 
with  the  travel  of  the  sun  to  his  setting.  But  there  is 
something  in  this  phase  of  belief  which  makes  it,  wherever 
it  appears,  more  national  and  characteristic  than  the  other 
creed  touching  the  under  world ;  and  that  is  the  necessity 


272  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

which  its  mythology  is  under  of  changing  according  to 
the  geographical  position  of  those  who  hold  it.  The  para- 
dise whither  the  soul  was  imagined  travelling  was  certainly 
in  one  sense  *  another  world,'  but  it  was  not  so  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  use  that  term.  The  ancient  paradise  was  in 
no  way  distinctly  separated  in  thought  from  the  earth  on 
which  men  lived ;  and  the  way  to  it  was  always  supposed 
to  lie  somewhere  in  this  visible  world.  Therefore  the  idea 
of  heaven  varied  according  to  men's  outlook  over  this 
earth.  The  Egyptian,  for  example,  saw  the  sun  set  behind 
a  trackless  desert  which  he  had  never  crossed  and  never 
desired  to  cross  while  alive.  This  desert  was  in  his  belief 
a  twilight  land  ruled  over  by  the  serpent  king  Apap.1  It 
lay  upon  the  left  bank  of  his  sacred  Nile,  while  the  cities 
of  the  living  were  upon  the  right  bank;  and  so  the 
Egyptian  'Book  of  the  Dead'  gives  us  a  picture  of  the 
dead  man's  journey,  in  which  all  the  geographical  features 
of  Egypt  reappear.  The  ritual  shows  the  departed  twice 
ferried  across  a  sacred  River  of  Death  (the  Nile),  travel- 
ling through  the  dark  land  of  Apap  or  of  Amenti,  ever 
advancing  towards  the  sun,  light  breaking  upon  him  the 
while,  till  he  comes  to  the  Palace  of  the  Two  Truths,  the 
judgment  hall  of  Osiris :  Osiris  being  the  sun  which  has 
set.  Last  of  all  we  see  him  walking  into  the  sun  itself, 
or  absorbed  into  the  essence  of  the  deity. 

Our  Aryans  used  the  same  imagery,  with  variations  of 
local  colouring.  In  both  myths  there  is  the  same  childlike 
confusion  of  thought  between  the  subjective  and  the  objec- 
tive ;  between  the  position  of  the  myth-maker  and  that  of 
the  phenomenon  out  of  which  he  weaves  his  story.  Because 
towards  sunset  the  sun  grows  dim  and  the  world  too,  it  is 
imagined  that  the  sun  has  now  reached  a  dim  twilight 
place,  such  as  the  Egyptians  pictured  in  their  region  of 

1  Apap,  the  immense,  a  personification  of  the  desert,  and  hence  of 
death.  He  may  be  compared  v/ith  the  great  mid-earth  serpent  (midgard 
worm)  of  the  Norse  mythology,  which  is  a  personification  of  the  sea  and 
death  in  one.  See  infra. 


THE  SEA  OF  DEATH.  273 

Apap,  or  the  Greeks  in  their  Cimmerian  land  upon  the 
borders  of  earth.  But  when  the  sun  has  quite  dis- 
appeared, then  inconsistently  it  is  said  that  he  has  gone 
to  a  land  which  is  his  proper  home,  whence  his  light, 
whether  by  day  or  night,  is  never  withdrawn.  The  twi- 
light region  is  the  land  of  death ;  the  bright  land  beyond 
is  the  home  of  the  blessed.  Such  are  the  general  notions 
which  among  a  primitive  people  correspond  to  our  Hell 
and  our  Heaven. 

In  a  former  chapter  we  were  able  to  present  some  picture 
of  the  Aryas  in  their  early  home  by  the  sources  of  the 
Oxus  and  of  the  Jaxartes.  We  must  once  again  recall 
this  picture  if  we  wish  to  gain  an  insight  into  the  origin 
of  their  beliefs  concerning  the  journey  of  the  soul  and  the 
other  world.  We  saw  how  one  division  of  the  race,  the 
older  portion,  those  from  whom  were  to  spring  the  Indians 
and  the  Iranians,  had  their  settlements  close  against  the 
eastern  hills ;  while  in  a  circle  outside  these  lay  the  tribes 
who  were  to  form  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  who  before 
they  broke  up  and  started  on  their  wanderings  bore  a 
common  name,  Yavanas,  the  younger  or  else  the  fighting 
members  of  the  community.  At  the  present  day  a  broad 
belt  of  desert  lies  between  the  fertile  valleys  of  Bactria 
and  the  Caspian  Sea.  While  Bactria  is  inhabited  by 
a  settled  and  agricultural  people,  the  great  Khuwaresm 
desert  produces  only  vegetation  enough  to  support  a  few 
Cossacks  and  wandering  Turkic  tribes.  But  there  is  suffi- 
cient reason  to  believe  that  this  was  not  always  the  case ; 
but  that  a  great  part  of  what  is  now  dry  land  was  once 
the  bed  of  the  Caspian,  which  was  joined  on  to  the  Sea  of 
Aral,  and  extended  in  every  direction  farther  than  it  now 
extends.  The  Caspian  is  known  to  have  fallen  greatly  in 
its  banks,  and  not  at  a  remote  period,  but  within  historical 
times  ; l  the  process  of  shrinking  would  in  a  double  way 
tend  to  the  creation  of  desert,  both  by  exposing  the  dry 

1  Wood,  SJiores  of  Lake  Aral. 
T 


274  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

bed  of  the  sea  and  by  rendering  the  other  land  sterile 
when  so  much  neighbouring  water  was  withdrawn. 

The  root- word  which  appears  in  the  European  class  of 
languages  with  the  meaning  of  '  sea,5  stands  in  the  Indian 
and  Iranian  tongues  for  '  desert.'  Can  we  explain  this 
fact  better  than  by  supposing  that  after  the  European 
nations  had  left  their  home,  their  brethren  who  remained 
behind,  and  only  long  after  migrated  to  India  and  to 
Persia,  came  to  know  as  a  desert  the  district  which  their 
fathers  had  known  as  the  sea  ? 

Oysters,  it  is  known,  will  not  live  save  at  the  mouths 
of  rivers,  and  philology  furnishes  us  with  proofs  that  these 
shell-fish  were  known  to  the  European  races  while  they 
were  still  one  people.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the 
Greek  oa-rpsov,  the  Latin  ostrea,  the  Irish  oisridh  or  oisire, 
the  Welsh  oestren,  the  Russian  usteru,  the  German  Auster, 
our  oyster  are  all  from  the  same  root.1  Therefore  the 
Yavanas  while  they  lived  together  must  have  lived  by  the 
sea.  Some  have  thought  that  the  growth  of  the  desert 
coinciding  with  a  parallel  growth  of  the  Aryan  people  first 
set  our  ancestors  upon  their  wanderings. 

How  much  more  roomy  a  place  the  sea  occupies  in 
men's  thoughts  than  is  warranted  by  their  real  familiarity 
with  it !  Into  the  mass  of  sedentary  lives — themselves  the 
great  majority — it  enters  but  seldom  as  an  experience, 
provided  a  man  live  only  a  few  miles  inland.  And  yet  of 
all  countries  which  possess  a  sea-board  how  full  is  the 
literature  of  references  to  this  one  phenomenon  of  nature  ! 
The  sun  and  moon  with  all  the  heavenly  bodies,  the  num- 
berless sights  and  sounds  of  land,  are  the  property  of  all ; 
and  yet  allusions  to  these  are  not  more  common  in  litera- 
ture than  allusions  to  the  sea ;  one  might  fancy  that  man 
was  amphibious,  with  a  power  of  actually  living  in  and 
not  only  by  the  water.  Charles  Lamb  acutely  penetrates 
the  cause  of  a  certain  disappointment  we  all  feel  at  the 

1  Pictet,  Oriffines,  &c.,  i.  514. 


THE  CASPIAN  SEA,  275 

sight  of  the  sea  for  the  first  time.  We  go  with  the 
expectation  of  seeing  all  the  sea  at  once,  the  commensurate 
antagonist  of  the  earth.  All  that  we  have  gathered  from 
narratives  of  wandering  seamen,  what  we  have  gained  from 
the  voyages,  and  what  we  cherish  as  credulously  from 
romances  and  poetry,  '  come  crowding  their  images  and 
exacting  strange  tributes  from  expectation.'  Thus  we  are 
already  steeped  in  thoughts  about  the  sea  before  we  have 
had  any  sight  of  it  ourselves,  and  only  from  the  sea's  great 
influence  acting  through  the  total  experience  of  mankind. 
*  We  think  of  the  great  deep  and  those  who  go  down  into  it ; 
of  its  thousand  isles  and  of  the  vast  continents  it  washes  ; 
of  its  receiving  the  mighty  Plata  or  Orellana  into  its 
bosom  without  disturbance  or  sense  of  augmentation ;  of 
Biscay  swells  and  the  mariner 

For  many  a  day  and  many  a  dreadful  night 
Incessant  labouring  round  the  stormy  Cape  ; 

of  fatal  rocks  and  the  "  still  vexed  Bermoothes ;  "  of 
great  whirlpools  and  the  waterspout ;  of  sunken  ships  and 
sumless  treasures  swallowed  up  in  the  unrestoring  depths.' 
This  tribute  which  our  expectation  pays  to  the  importance 
of  the  sea  in  men's  thought  shows  us  that  we  must  not 
narrow  the  sea's  influence  in  mythology  by  the  limit  of 
man's  mere  experience  of  it.  Few  among  the  Aryans 
lived  by  the  Caspian  shore.  But  still  the  tradition  of  the 
Caspian  appears  in  one  form  or  another  in  the  beliefs  of 
all  the  race.  The  tradition  of  the  sea,  of  its  real  wonders 
and  its  greater  fancied  terrors,  must  have  passed  from  one 
to  another,  from  the  few  who  lived  within  sight  and  sound 
of  the  waters  to  many  quite  beyond  the  horizon  to  whom 
it  was  not  visible  even  as  a  faint  silvery  line. 

Only  the  Yavanas  lived  by  the  Caspian  shore.  The 
memory  of  the  Caspian,  however,  is  to  be  found  more  or 
less  distinctly  in  all  Aryan  mythology.  For  to  the  Aryan 
race  generally  this  sea  stood  in  the  same  position  which 

T  2 


276  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  desert  occupied  to  the  Egyptian.  Their  backs  were 
towards  the  mountains,  their  faces  towards  the  Caspian. 
All  their  prospect,  all  their  future,  seemed  to  lie  that  way : 
when  their  migrations  began,  they  were  undertaken  in  this 
direction,  towards  the  west.  And,  most  important  of  all, 
their  sun  god  was  seen  by  many  quenching  his  beams  in 
the  waves :  the  home  of  the  sun  is  the  home  of  souls. 
What  more  natural,  nay,  what  so  necessary,  as  that  the 
Aryan  Paradise  should  lie  westward  beyond  that  water  ? 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Indian  word  for  desert  corre- 
sponds etymologic  ally  with  the  European  word  for  sea : 
that  word  must  have  been  in  the  old  Aryan  something 
like  mara,  from  which  we  get  the  Persian  meru,  desert,1 
the  Latin  mare,  the  Teutonic  (German  and  English)  meer. 
But  from  identically  the  same  root  we  also  get  the  Sanskrit 
and  Zend  mara,  death,  the  Latin  mors,  the  old  Norse  mordh, 
the  German  Mord,  our  murder,  all  signifying  originally  the 
same  thing.2  What,  then,  does  this  imply?  The  word 
which  the  old  Aryas  used  for  sea  they  used  likewise  for 
death;  and  how  would  this  have  been  possible  unless  this 
Caspian,  their  first  sea,  were  likewise  the  Sea  of  Death,  an 
inevitable  stage  upon  the  road  to  Paradise  ? 

Though  I  speak  of  a  sea  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
to  primitive  man,  who  has  not  yet  explored  its  tracts,  the 
sea  is  but  the  greatest  among  rivers.  The  Greek  Oceanus 
was  a  river  and  yet  the  parent  of  all  waters  :  the  true 
parent  of  Oceanus  was  the  Caspian.  It  would  be  natural 
for  the  Aryas  to  suppose  that  this  measureless  stream 
surrounded  all  the  habitable  aarth,  and  that  beyond  it  lay 
the  dim  region  of  twilight,  the  Cimmerian  land  which 
Odysseus  visited. 

The  sunset  and  the  ways  were  o'erdarkeDed,  for   now  we  bad 

come 
To  the  deep-flowing  Ocean's  far  limit,  the  shadowy  home 

1  To  the  Vedic  Indians  the  word  Meru  came  to  stand  for  Paradise. 

2  Fick,  Verg.  Worterb.  der  I.-  G.  Sp.  i.  s.  v.  mar. 


THE  DEATH  REGION  IN  THE  EDDAS.      277 

Where  the  mournful  Cimmerians  dwell;   there   the  sun  never 

throws 
His  bright  beam  when  to  scale  the  high  star  vault  in  morning  he 

goes, 

Or  earthward  returns  from  the  midday  to  rest;  for  the  gloom 
Of  night  never  ending  reigns  there — a  perpetual  doom.1 

The  cosmology  of  the  Eddas  has  been,  perhaps,  partly 
shaped  by  the  peculiar  circumstances  in  which  the  Eddas 
arose,  and  the  special  character  of  the  land  (Iceland)  in 
which  they  had  their  birth ;  but  still  we  have  traces  in  the 
Eddas  of  a  belief  which  was  common  alike  to  Greek  and 
Icelander.  In  the  Norse  poems  the  world  is  pictured  as 
supported  in  the  centre  by  the  great  tree  Yggdrasill,  and 
in  the  midmost  of  all  is  the  city  of  the  gods,  Asgard,  the 
JEsirs'-(gods'-)ward.  Around  lies  the  green  and  fruitful 
earth,  man's-home ;  and  this  in  its  turn  is  surrounded  by 
the  mid-gard  sea.  Beyond  that  sea  is  a  land  of  perpetual 
fog  and  ice  ;  a  weird  and  phantom  land,  possessed  by 
beings  of  another  race,  hateful  to  men.  This  Northern 
Hades  is  called  Jotunheimar,  giants'  home.  The  mid- 
gard  sea,  which  is  a  sea  of  death,  and  at  a  still  earlier 
time  must  have  been  a  river  of  death,  is  personified  in  the 
mid-gard  worm,  the  serpent  Jormungandr,  who  lies  curled 
at  the  bottom  with  his  tail  in  his  mouth,  encircling  the 
world.  He  ever  waxes  in  length,  and  his  tail  grows  into 
his  inwards ;  and  this,  as  we  noted  before,  is  in  exact 
analogy  with  the  Greek  Oceanus,  which  returns  to  flow 
into  itself.  If  rivers  are  ever  typified  by  serpents,  then 
the  greatest  river  of  all,  the  earth  stream,  is  typified  by 
the  mightiest  of  serpents,  by  this  Jormungandr. 

We  spoke  in  a  former  chapter  of  the  fight  between  the 
sun  god  and  the  great  river  serpents  of  mythology,  of 
Apollo  with  the  Python,  of  Thorr  with  Jormungandr. 
That  combat  has  a  deeper  significance  when  we  take  into 
account  that  the  serpents  are  images  of  death  and  personify 

: 

1  Od.  xi.  12  sqq. 


278  OUTLINES  QF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  River  of  Death.  Thorr  is  slain  by  his  adversary,  and 
Apollo  (according  to  one  myth)  after  his  fight  with  the 
other  has  to  visit  the  realm  of  Hades.  This  is  no  more 
than  saying  that  the  sun,  like  mortal  man  himself,  has  to 
quench  his  beams  and  die  in  the  mighty  earth  stream. 

Gradually  the  notions  of  the  River  of  Death  and  of 
the  Sea  of  Death  from  being  one  became  two,  and  other 
changes  likewise  sprang  up  through  the  natural  confusion 
of  mythology  between  all  the  various  types  of  mortality, 
between  the  under  world,  Hades,  which  was  reached  from 
the  grave  mouth,  and  the  river  passage  or  the  long  sea 
voyage  which  were  required  to  get  to  the  land  of  souls. 
Hades  itself  shifted  between  a  place  beneath  the  earth 
and  another  far  away  in  the  west.  Odysseus,  to  get  there, 
had  to  sail  for  many  a  day  and  many  a  weary  night  to  the 
extreme  boundary  of  Ocean.  But  when  he  had  got  there 
he  met  his  companion  Elpenor,  whom  he  had  left  a  little 
while  ago  dead  on  Circe's  island.  Him  the  hero  asked  how 
he  could  have  come  under  the  dark  west  more  quickly 
than  Odysseus  had  done,  sailing  in  a  ship.1  From  such  an 
instance  as  this  we  see  how  far  the  original  meaning  of 
the  myths  had  been  forgotten,  and  how  a  confusion  had 
sprung  up  between  the  Hades  under  men's  feet  and  the 
Hades  at  the  end  of  the  death  journey,  lying  far  away 
in  the  west.  It  was  in  virtue  of  a  similar  amalgamation 
of  ideas  that  the  mortal  river  soon  found  its  way  to  the 
under  world.  In  the  Greek  mythology  the  one  subter- 
ranean stream  expanded  into  four — abhorred  Styx,  sad 
Acheron,  Cocytus,  Phlegethon.  These  have  all  grown 
mythopoetically  out  of  ocean;  as  much  as  they  were 
feigned  actually  to  flow  from  it.  The  Norse  under  world 
had  its  subterranean  river,  named  Gjoll,  the  sounding, 
from  gjalla,  to  yell,  as  Cocytus,  from  /CWKVCO,  to  cry.  Of 
Gjoll,  as  we  shall  meet  with  it  again  in  another  chapter, 
I  need  say  no  more  here. 

1  Od.  xi.  51  sqq. 


EXPEDITIONS  TO  FIND  THE  EAKTHLY  PARADISE.    279 

A  desert,  such  as  the  Egyptian  desert,  or  a  sea  like 
the  Caspian,  forms  a  natural  barrier  between  the  living 
and  the  dead.  Without  such  a  bar,  if  men  supposed  that 
some  happy  land  lay  to  the  west  of  them,  it  would  be 
hardly  possible  that  they  should  refrain  from  an  attempt 
to  get  there,  living.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  myth  of  the 
soul's  journey  was  translated  into  this  literal  shape,  and 
became  the  myth  of  the  Earthly  Paradise,  with  an  out- 
come of  frequent  expeditions — more  by  many  than  we 
know  of  now — to  find  it.  At  last  these  expeditions  ended 
happily  in  the  discovery,  if  not  of  a  deathless  land,  at  any 
rate  of  a  new  world. 

They  were  not  religious,  heavenward-looking  men  who, 
.in  Mr.  Morris's  poem,  set  out  in  quest  of  the  Earthly 
Paradise ;  and  no  doubt  the  bard  has  been  guided  by  a 
true  instinct,  and  that  of  all  those  mediaeval  mariners  who 
were  lost  in  their  search  after  St.  Brandon's  Isles  none 
knew  that  they  had  found  what  they  were  seeking — Death. 

Must  we  not,  then,  place  among  such  journeys  that  of 
the  king  Svegder  Fiolnersson — whom  we  read  of  in  the 
Ynglinga  Saga1 — who  made  a  solemn  vow  to  seek  Odhinn 
and  the  home  of  the  gods  ?  Asgard  had  lost  its  grand 
supersensuous  meaning  in  his  days ;  it  was  simply  a  city 
of  the  earth,  and  a  place  to  be  got  to.  Snorri  tells  us 
how  Svegder  wandered  many  years  upon  his  quest,  and  of 
the  strange  way  he  found  what,  unknowingly,  he  had  been 
seeking.  One  day  he  came  to  an  immense  stone,  as  large 
as  a  house.  Beneath  it  sat  a  dwarf,  who  called  out  to 
him  that  he  should  come  in  there  if  he  wished  to  talk 
with  Odhinn ;  and  being  very  drunk,  Svegder  and  his  man 
ran  towards  the  stone.  Then  a  door  opened  in  the  stone, 
the  king  ran  in,  and  the  door  immediately  closed  upon 
him,  so  that  he  was  never  seen  again.  Gorm  the  Wise 
was  another  Norseman  who  jnade  a  great  expedition  to 
the  end  of  the  world.2  The  Greeks  eagerly  cherished 

1  Cap.  15.  2  Saxo  Gramrnaticus,  Hist.  Dan.  1.  viii. 


280  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

delusions  of  the  same  kind;  and  long  before  they  had 
summoned  up  courage  sufficient  to  navigate  the  Mediter- 
ranean they  had  invented  the  myths  of  their  western 
islands  of  the  blest,  to  which  yellow-haired  E-hadamanthus 
was  taken  when  expelled  from  Crete  by  his  brother  Minos, 
or  of  those  gardens  kept  by  the  daughters  of  the  West,1 
where  decay  and  death  could  not  enter. 

The  two  myths  of  the  Sea  of  Death  and  of  the  River 
of  Death,  which  had  sprung  from  the  same  source,  became, 
as  time  went  on,  divided  in  their  characters.  The  wan- 
derings of  the  Aryas  would  necessarily  bring  about  this 
effect:  first,  by  showing  to  some  peoples  the  difference 
between  the  sea  and  a  river;  and  secondly,  by  transferring 
to  other  seas  the  myths  which  had  originally  gathered 
round  the  Caspian. 

The  terrors  of  the  Sea  of  Death,  wherever  it  was,  would 
gradually  diminish ;  and  though  the  early  belief  would  not 
be  abandoned,  there  would  grow  up  beside  it  the  parallel 
conception  of  a  distinctly  Earthly  Paradise.  The  earliest 
Paradise  is,  I  have  said,  in  a  sense  an  earthly  one,  seeing 
that  its  site  is  not  absolutely  removed  by  thought  from  the 
earth.  While  somehow  it  cannot  be  reached  save  through 
the  portal  of  death,  mythology  never  acknowledges  that 
the  dead  do  actually  leave  the  world  of  man.  This  incon- 
sistency of  thought — if  it  is  one — could  be  preserved  with- 
out difficulty  among  a  sedentary  people.  The  Egyptian, 
perhaps,  never  enquired  why  living  men  might  not  cross 
the  desert  to  the  house  of  Osiris.  But  when  a  nation 
begins  to  move,  the  thought  springs  into  its  mind,  '  Why 
is  death  the  only  road  to  the  home  whither  our  fathers 
have  gone  ?  May  we  not  arrive  at  the  immortal  land  by 
an  easier,  or  at  any  rate  by  a  less  painful  route?'  Come 
what  may,  they  resolve  to  try.  All  the  Western  Aryas 
reached  the  sea  at  last ;  wherefore  it  is  in  the  mythology 
of  the  European  races  that  we  must  look  for  the  best 

1  Hesperides. 


THE  INDIAN  RIVER  OF  DEATH.  281 

examples  of  the  Sea  of  Death  and  of  the  Earthly  Para- 
dise which  lay  beyond.  The  elder  Aryas,  the  Indians  and 
Iranians,  remained  much  longer  inland ;  wherefore  their 
River  of  Death  never  was  confounded  with  the  sea ;  it  re- 
mained in  clear  colours  and  sharp  outline  in  their  creed. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  from  the  belief  in  the  River  of 
Death  arose  the  custom  of  committing  the  dead  to  the . 
sacred  Ganges ; l  for  just  as  the  Hindu  kindles  a  funeral 
fire  on  the  boat  which  bears  the  dead  down  this  visible 
stream  of  death,  so  used  the  Norseman  to  place  a  hero's 
body  in  his  ship,  and  then  having  set  fire  to  that  ship, 
send  it  out  seawards  on  the  tide.  And  again,  as  by  the 
Indian  the  Ganges  is  the  being  entrusted  with  the  care 
of  the  dead,  so  to  the  Gaul  the  Rhone  was  the  river  of 
death.  Nismes  became  the  great  necropolis  of  southern 
Gaul;  for  at  that  place  it  was  customary  to  cast  the 
dead  into  the  river.  The  custom  survived  even  into 
Christian  times.2 

In  a  more  distinctly  mythical  guise  the  mortal  stream 
appears  in  the  Indian  mythology  under  the  names  Vija- 
ranadi  and  Yaiterani.  What  the  Vedas  have  to  tell  us 
touching  this  river  has  been  considerably  amplified  in  the 
Brahmanas.  In  one  tradition  we  meet  with  both  the 
sea  and  the  river  of  death.  It  is  said  that  all  who  leave 
this  world  come  first  to  the  moon,  'heaven's  immortal 
door.'  This  gate  few  only  pass ;  the  rest,  agreeably  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  return  thence  to 
earth,  some  as  rain,  some  as  worms,  insects,  lions,  tigers, 
fish,  dogs,  men.  But  he  who  has  known  Brahma  goes 
along  the  god's  way,  and  comes  first  to  the  world  of  Fire, 
then  to  that  of  the  Wind,  then  to  that  of  the  Sun,  to  that 
of  the  Moon,  that  of  the  Lightning,  that  of  Indra,  that  of 
Prajapati,  at  the  end  to  that  of  Brahma;  and  this  last 
• 

1  The  Indian  Gangd  (Ganges)  is  turned  into  a  mythic  river,  and  is 
made,  like  Oceanus,  the  parent  of  all  waters.  This  shows  the  Ganges  to 
be  identified  with  the  Kiver  of  Death. 

8  Michelet,  Histoire  de  France^  1.  iii.  <  Tableau  de  France.' 


282  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

world  is  surrounded  by  a  deep  sea,  deep  as  a  hundred  other 
seas,  and  with  black  waves  made  by  the  tears  of  human 
kind.  From  this  sea  flows  a  river,  the  '  eternal  stream ' 
(vijara  nadi),  which  makes  men  young  again.  It  is,  in  fact, 
the  forerunner  of  our  mediaeval  and  more  modern  Fontaines 
de  Jouvence.  The  true  origin  of  the  Fontaine  de  Jouvence 
is  the  same  as  the  origin  of  this  vijara  nadi :  that  is  to 
say,  both  are  rivers  of  death,  and  men  are  made  young  by 
passing  them,  only  when  they  thus  pass  into  a  new  life. 
Near  this  '  eternal  stream '  is  the  tree  Ilpa,  which  bears 
all  the  fruits  of  the  world  :  the  Tree  of  Life  in  all  Euro- 
pean (and  Eastern)  tradition  stands  beside  the  Fountain  of 
Youth.  When  the  good  man  shall  come  to  the  world  of 
Brahma,  Brahma  will  say  to  his  attendants,  (  Receive  this 
man  with  honour ;  for  he  has  passed  the  stream  Vijara  nadi, 
and  will  never  more  be  old.'  Then  five  hundred  Apsaras 
will  come  to  meet  him,  bearing  flowers,  and  fruits,  and 
clear  water.1 

This  is  the  Eiver  of  Death  seen  in  its  sunniest  aspect. 
The  reverse  side  of  the  picture  is  suggested  by  the  other 
name  of  it,  Vaitaram,  '  the  hard  to  cross.'  Into  this 
seething  flood  the  wicked  fall.  On  the  other  side  is  Para- 
dise— that  is  to  say,  the  home  of  the  Pitris,  or  ancestors. 
That  the  dead  man  may  gain  a  passage  over  this  dreadful 
stream,  a  cow  (called  anustarawi)  was  offered  up.2  Vaite- 
ram,  another  poem  says,  lies  e  across  the  dreadful  path  to 
the  house  of  Yam  a,'  the  king  of  hell. 

So  much  for  this  river  as  it  stands  alone.  A  most 
important  change  must  have  been  wrought  in  belief  when 
the  custom  of  burning  the  dead  was  introduced.  It 
would  seem  that  our  Aryan  ancestors  themselves  were 
the  introducers  of  this  rite.  We  can  easily  understand 

1  Cf.  Pindar,  Olymp.  Odes,  ii.  v.  75  sqq.  ed.  Boeckh.     See  Weber,  In- 
disclie  Studien,  i.  359  sq. ;  Weber,  Chamb.  1020. 

2  Another  cow  is  offered  up  twelve  days  after  the  man's  death.     This 
last  fact  is  important  in  connection  with  the  myths  of  Hackelberg,  told  in 
this  chapter  and  in  the  tenth  chapter.     See  Kuhn  in  Haupt's  Zeitsch.  fiir 
deut.  Alterthum,  v.  379  and  vi.  117,  also  in  his  own  Z.f.  very.  Sp.  ii.  311. 


THE  DEATH  OF  THE  SUN.  283 

how  the  custom  may  have  arisen.  When  the  god  of  fire 
is  such  an  important  being  as  the  Vedas  show  him  to 
have  once  been,  the  thought  of  committing  the  dead  to 
his  care  seems  simple  and  natural.  Agni,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  the  messenger  between  gods  and  men ;  he 
called  down  the  gods  to  feast  at  the  altar,  and  he  took 
from  the  altar  the  smoke  and  odour  of  the  sacrifice  to 
heaven.  When  the  funeral  fire  had  been  lighted  the 
same  divinity  took  with  him  the  soul  of  man  to  his  last 
abode.  Now,  fire  worship  such  as  that  of  Agni  was  not 
originally  peculiar  to  the  Indo-Aryas :  it  was  in  them  but 
a  survival  of  a  state  of  belief  common  to  the  whole  Aryan 
race,  whereof  we  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter  numerous 
proofs. 

Or  was  it  that  the  sun,  who,  as  a  wanderer,  traced 
out  beforehand  the  journey  of  the  soul,  who  himself  sank 
into  the  new  world  behind  the  waves  of  the  jRiver  of 
Death,  did  also  in  another  way  suggest  the  burning  of 
the  corpse  ?  The  sun  gods,  Apollo  and  Heracles,  Thorr 
and  Balder,  do  in  sundry  ways  and  in  divers  actions 
present  the  ideal  life  of  human  kind.  These  are  the 
heroes  of  heroes  ;  whatever  kind  their  death  was  it  must 
have  been  the  one  most  worthy  of  imitation.  The  two 
great  fire  funerals  mentioned  respectively  in  Greek  and 
Norse  mythologies  are  the  funerals  of  sun  gods. 

The  one  is  that  of  Heracles.  The  hero,  when  he  felt 
the  clinging  torment  of  the  shirt  of  Nessus,  and  knew 
that  his  end  was  near,  ordered  his  funeral  fire  to  be 
lighted  on  Mount  (Eta,  on  the  western  shore  of  the 
JEgean.1  This  myth  must  have  been  invented  by  Asiatic 
Greeks,  who  saw  the  fiery  sunset  upon  that  sea.  Again, 
the  body  of  Balder,  who  had  been  slain  by  his  brother 
Hoder,  was  placed  upon  the  dead  god's  ship  Hringhorni, 
a  funeral  fire  was  lighted  on  the  ship,  and  it  was  then 

1  The  funeral  fire  of  many  a  hero  is  lighted  near  the  sea-shore,  as  in 
this  case  of  Heracles.  Cf.  Achilles,  II.  xxiii.  124  ;  Beowulf,  6297.  In  other 
cases  of  Norse  funeral  fires  they  are  lighted  on  a  ship.  See  Ch.  VIII. 


284  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

sent  drifting  into  the  sea.  This  is  the  barque  of  the  sun 
sinking  in  the  waves.  Most  of  the  great  epic  heroes — 
many  of  them  sun  heroes — followed  the  same  custom  of 
fire  burial.  Of  the  Homeric  funerals  we  need  not  speak. 
Sigurd  and  Brynhild  mounted  their  pyre,  and  on  it  placed 
their  horses,  dogs,  and  falcons,  all  they  had  prized  most 
on  earth. 

Burning  the  dead,  however,  never  seems  to  have  been 
a  universal  practice;  rather  a  special  honour  paid  to 
warriors  and  kings.  But  then  we  must  remember  that 
immortality  itself  was  not,  in  ancient  belief,  granted  to  all 
men  alike,  only  to  the  greatest. 

We  see  at  once  that,  .with  the  use  of  fire  burial,  many 
of  the  old  beliefs  had  to  be  given  up — all  those,  for  in- 
stance, which  depended  upon  the  preservation  of  the  bodily 
remains.  Of  old  time  men  had  buried  treasures  with  the 
corpse  in  the  expectation  that  they  would  be  some  kind  of 
use  to  it ;  the  body  itself  was  then  imagined  to  descend  to 
the  under  world,  or  to  travel  the  western  journey  to  the 
sun.  But  now  the  body  was  visibly  consumed  upon  the 
pyre,  on  which  too  were  placed,  by  a  curious  survival  of 
old  custom,  the  precious  things  which  would  formerly  have 
been  buried  with  the  dead  man  in  his  grave.  The  body 
and  these  treasures  were  consumed,  had  gone  ;  but 
whither  ?  Had  they  perished  utterly,  and  was  there 
nothing  more  now  left  than  that  earliest  belief  of  an 
*A-eiSr]$ — a  nowhere  ?  Were  none  true  of  all  those  myths 
which  told  of  the  soul  passing  to  a  home  of  bliss  ?  In- 
stead of  giving  up  this  faith,  the  Aryas  only  transformed 
it ;  they  spiritualised  it  and  stripped  it  of  the  too  material 
clothing  which  in  earlier  times  it  wore.  The  thought 
which  had  once  identified  the  life  with  the  breath  came 
again  into  force.  Or  if  some  visible  representation  of  the 
essence  of  the  man  was  still  desired,  men  had  the  smoke 
of  the  funeral  pyre,  which  rose  heavenwards  like  an  as- 
cending soul. 

In  the  Iliad,  after  Patroclus'  spirit  (^v^rj]  has  visited 


BUENING  THE  DEAD.  285 

Achilles  in  his  dream,  it  is  described  as  going  away  crying 
shrilly  and  entering  the  ground  like  smoke: 


We  meet  with  the  same  imagery  in  long  after  years  and 
in  a  far  distant  land,  when,  in  the  description  of  the 
funeral  fire  of  Beowulf  the  Goth,  it  is  said  that  the  soul 
of  the  hero  '  curled  to  the  clouds,'  imaging  the  smoke 
which  was  curling  up  from  his  pyre.  There  is  even  a 
curious  analogy  betwen  two  words  for  smoke  and  soul  in 
the  Aryan  tongues.  From  a  primitive  word  dhu,  which 
means  to  shake  or  blow,  we  get  both  the  Sanskrit  word 
dhuma,  smoke,  and  the  Greek  Qvpos,  the  immaterial  part 
of  a  man,  his  thought  or  soul.  Svfj,6s  was  not  a  mere  ab- 
straction like  our  word  mind,  but  that  which  had  a  certain 
amount  of  separate  individuality,  and  might  even  continue 
to  live  when  the  body  had  been  destroyed.2 

In  these  ways,  by  a  change  in  the  opinion  of  men 
mingling  with  a  survival  of  old  custom,  the  funeral  rites 
were  reformed,  and  the  inanimate  things—  the  food,  the 
weapons,  the  clothes  —  which  would  once  have  been  buried 
with  the  dead,  were  now  burnt  with  him.  Of  such  re- 
formed rites  we  have  a  complete  picture  in  the  funeral  of 
Patroclus,  and  the  picture  is  one  which  in  all  essential 
details  might  serve  for  any  of  the  Aryan  folk.  Oxen  and 
sheep  were  slain  before  the  pyre  of  the  hero,  and  with  the 
fat  of  their  bodies  and  with  honey  the  corpse  was  liberally 
anointed.  Then  twelve  captives  were  sacrificed  to  the 
manes  of  the  dead  Patroclus  ;  they  and  his  favourite  dogs 
were  burned  upon  the  pile.  In  this  instance  it  is  the 
complete  burning,  as  formerly  it  had  been  the  complete 

*  11.  xxiii.  100. 

2  The  exact  character  of  the  Ovfi6s,  how  far  it  was  an  entity  separate 
from  the  body,  I  have  discussed  in  another  place,  '  The  Homeric  Words  for 
Soul,'  in  Mind,  October  1881.  There  is  one  example  in  Homer  of  the  6vn6s 
continuing  to  exist  after  the  body  (II.  vii.  131)  ;  but  I  believe  this  is  the 
only  one. 


286  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

sepulture,  which  constitutes  the  needful  passport  to  Hades. 
And  so  when  the  fire  will  not  burn,  Achilles  prays  to  the 
North  and  the  West  Winds  to  come  and  consummate  the 
funeral  rite.  All  night  as  the  flame  springs  up  Achilles 
stands  beside  it,  calling  upon  the  name  of  his  friend  and 
watering  the  ground  with  libations  from  a  golden  cup. 
Toward  morning  the  fire  dies  down,  and  then  the  two 
Winds,  according  to  the  beautiful  imagery  of  the  myth, 
their  work  done,  *  return  homewards  across  the  Thracian 
sea.' 1 

Hector's  clothes,  as  we  have  seen,  were  burnt  as  a  sort 
of  substitute  for  his  body ;  Patroclus'  treasures  were  con- 
sumed with  him.  The  same  customs  were  observed  at  the 
funerals  of  the  Teutonic  heroes  and  heroines,  Sigurd, 
Beowulf,  Brynhild,  and  the  rest.2  Csesar  tells  us  how  the 
Gauls  burnt  with  the  dead  all  that  they  had  loved.3  Evi- 
dently, therefore,  the  inanimate  things,  the  weapons  or 
garments,  as  well  as  the  captives  and  dogs,  were  believed 
to  survive  in  a  land  of  essences  for  the  use  of  the  libe- 
rated soul. 

To  the  question, '  Whither  does  man's  essence  go  when 
it  rises  from  the  funeral  fire  ? '  the  answer,  if  a  wish  alone 
urged  the  thought,  would  be,  'To  the  gods.'  We  find 
that  in  the  beliefs  which  were  most  associated  with  the 
habit  of  burying  in  the  ground  the  notion  of  a  future 
union  with  the  gods  was  not  strongly  insisted  upon.  The 
western  land,  for  instance,  whither  the  sun  was  thought 
to  go  at  night,  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  real 
home  of  the  gods,  with  Olympus  or  with  Asgard.  The 
Greek  islands  of  the  blest  were  not  the  seat  of  the  gods ; 
nor  was  the  house  of  Yama,  which  the  Indians  spoke  of 
as  their  land  of  the  dead ;  nor,  in  fact,  has  any  other 
earthly  paradise  been  so.  But,  among  the  myths  which 
sprang  up  in  the  age  of  burning  the  dead,  the  hope  of 

1  H.  xxiii.  193-230.  2  Beowulf,  6020;  HelreiS  Brynhildar,  &c. 

8  B.  G.  vi.  19.     See  Pictet,  Lcs  Origines,  &c.  ii.  519,  for  examples  of  the 
game  custom  among  more  modern  nations. 


THE  BRLDaE  OF  SOULS.  287 

union  with,  the  heavenly  powers  gained  a  measure  of 
strength.  The  gods  of  the  Aryan  were  before  everything 
gods  of  the  air*  As  the  soul,  made  visible  in  the  smoke 
of  the  funeral  pyre,  was  seen  by  men  to  mount  upwards, 
to  '  curl  to  the  douds,'  the  notion  of  the  soul's  having 
gone  to  join  the  gods — chief  god  Dyaus,  the  sky — was 
impressed  more  vividly  upon  men's  minds.1  But  as  the 
notion  of  the  western  journey  was  not  abandoned,  a  natural 
compromise  was  made,  a.nd  the  soul  was  now  sent  upwards 
to  travel  along  the  path  of  the  sun :  its  journey  now  lay  in 
heaven,  and  it  was  led  towards  its  final  home  by  the  Sun 
or  by  the  Wind.  Still  the  path  of  the  deceased  lay  west- 
ward; the  home  of  the  dead  ancestors  was  still  beyond 
the  same  western  horizon  ;  there  was  still  an  Oceanus  to 
be  crossed  and  a  dark  Cimmerian  land  to  be  passed 
through. 

The  path  thus  taken  by  the  soul  becomes  to  the  eye  of 
faith  a  bridge  spanning  the  celestial  arch,  and  carrying 
men  over  the  River  of  Death.  And  men  would  soon 
begin  asking  themselves  where  lay  this  heavenly  road. 
Night  is  necessarily  associated  with  thoughts  of  death — 
'  Death  and  his  brother  Sleep ' — and  of  the  other  world. 
The  heavens  wear  a  more  awful  aspect  than  by  day.  The 
sun  has  forsaken  us  and  is  himself  buried  beneath  the 
earth ;  while  at  once  a  million  dwellers  in  the  upper 
regions,  who  were  before  unseen,  appear  to  sight,  those 
stars  which  in  so  many  mythologies  are  associated  with 
souls.2  Among  the  stars  we  see  a  bright  yet  misty  bow 
bent  overhead.  Can  this  be  other  than  the  appointed 
Bridge  of  Souls?  The  ancient  Indians  called  this  road 


1  '  If,  after  having  left  the  body,  thou  comest  to  the  free  air,  thou  wilt 
be  an  immortal  god,  not  subject  to  decay  and  death '  (Phocylides,  St/lb.  p.  97). 
In  the  case  of  the  ordinary  sacrifice,  if  the  flame  mounted  upward  the  sacri- 
fice was  accepted  (cf.  11.  i.  462 ;  Od.  iii.  459  ;  Sre  also  Maury,  R.  de  la  6f. 
ch.  xiii.)     The  same  idea  would  naturally  accompany  the  burning  of  the 
dead. 

2  For  example,  in  Hebrew  belief  (cf.  Kuenen,  Rel.  of  Israel)  and  in 
Russian  folk-lore  (cf .  Ralston's  S^rtgs  of  tlie  Russian  People). 


288  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

God's  Path  (panthano  devayah),  because,  besides  ita 
being  the  way  of  souls  to  God,  it  was  likewise  the  way  of 
God  to  men.  They  also  called  it  cow  path  (meaning 
possibly  cloud  path),  and  this  designation  appears  again 
in  the  Low  German  name  for  the  same  heavenly  bridge. 
Kaupat  (Kuhpfad).  From  the  ancient  appellation,  cow 
path,  it  is  probable  that  we  get  the  more  widely  spread 
name  of  the  '  Milky  Way.' 

In  the  Vedic  hymns  the  Indians  oftenest  speak  of  the 
Milky  Way  as  the  path  of  Yama,  the  way  to  the  house  of 
Yam  a  the  ruler  of  the  dead. 

A  narrow  path,  an  ancient  one,  stretches  there,  a  path  untrodden 

by  men,  a  path  I  know  of. 
On  it  the  wise  who  have  known  Brahma  ascend  to   the  world 

Swarga,1  when  they  have  received  their  dismissal, 

sings  one.  Another  prays  the  Maruts,  the  Winds,  not  to 
let  him  wander  on  the  path  of  Yama,  or  when  he  does  so, 
when  his  time  .shall  come,  to  keep  him,  that  he  fall  not 
into  the  hands  of  Nirrtis,  the  Queen  of  Naraka  (Tartarus).4 

The  Maruts  in  this  instance  are  appointed  the  guardians 
of  the  soul ;  and  there  is  something  very  appropriate  in 
the  performance  of  the  office  by  these  wind  gods. 

Agni,  the  fire  god,  is  of  course  the  one  who  first  of  all 
takes  charge  of  the  soul  when  it  leaves  the  funeral  fire. 
But  next  after  Agni  it  seems  appropriate  that  the  soul 
should  be  given  in  charge  to  the  Wind.  The  duty  is  not, 
however,  undertaken  by  the  Maruts  only  ;  in  other  pas- 
sages we  find  as  guardians  of  the  bridge  two  dogs,  and 
the  dead  man  is  committed  to  their  care.  But  these  dogs 
are  also  personifications  of  the  Wind. 

Give  him,  O  King  Yama,  to  the  two  dogs,  the  watchers,  tie 
four-eyed  guardians  of  the  path,  guardians  of  men.  Grant  him 
safety  and  freedom  from  pain. 

1  Swarga,  the  bright  land  of  the  blessed.    The  word  is  from  the  root  war, 
to  shine. 

2  R.  V.  i.  38,  5. 


THE  BRIDGE  OF  SOULS.  289 

And  it  would  seem  from  in  any  other  instances  that 
these  two  dogs  of  Yama  have  the  special  mission  of  taking 
charge  of  the  dead  who  travel  to  tho  bright  paradise 
beyond  the  bridge. 

Thus  stands  out  in  beauty  and  completeness  the  myth 
of  the  Bridge  of  Souls.  A  narrow  path  spanning  the  arch 
of  heaven,  passing  over  the  River  of  Death,  or  over  the 
dwelling  of  Nirrtis,  Queen  of  Tartarus,  it  reaches  at  last 
to  the  country  of  the  wise  Pitris,  the  fathers  of  the  nation. 
These  Pitris  have  gone  to  heaven  before,  and  since  their 
death  have  not  ceased  to  watch  over  the  men  of  their  race. 
The  path  is  guarded  by  two  dogs,  the  hounds  of  Yama, 
wardens  of  the  way,  and  likewise  psychopomps,  or 
conductors  of  the  soul  along  this  strait  road. 

While  the  European  races  worked  up  into  wondrous 
variety,  as  we  shall  see  anon,  tho  story  of  the  soul's  journey 
over  seas,  the  myths  of  the  River  of  Death  and  of  the 
Bridge  of  Souls  were  cherished  most  by  the  Indians  and 
Iranians. 

The  two  hounds  of  Yama  recall  in  the  first  place  the 
primitive  image  of  the  underground  world  as  a  devouring 
creature  :  thus  in  this  respect  they  both  of  them  resemble 
the  classic  Cerberus.  Their  common  name  is  Sarameyas, 
which  connects  them  with  the  wind  of  dawn,  Sarama  ;J  and 
this,  as  we  have  seen,  was  also  the  wind  of  evening.  The 
Sarameyas  are  said  to  be  ( born  of  the  evening  wind ' — 
that  is  to  say,  they  are  beings  of  the  night.  In  this  re- 
spect they  recall  both  in  character  and  name  the  Greek 
Hermes  ;  for  the  word  '£/>//,?}£,  'Ep/^/as-,  is  nothing  more 
than  a  transliteration  of  the  Sanskrit  Sarameyas.  Taken 
together,  then — that  is  to  say,  under  their  common  name, 
Sarameyas — the  two  dogs  are  like  two  Hermes;  they 
are  two  wind  gods.  Hermes  combined  in  his  being  the 
natures  of  both  the  wind  of  morning  and  the  wind  of 
evening ;  he  wag  the  god  who  sent  men  to  sleep  or  awoke 
them  from  sleep,2  the  leader  of  shades  to  the  under  world, 
1  See  Chap.  III.  2  Od.  v.  47 ;  xxiv.  4 ;  &c. 

U 


290  OUTLINES  OF  PBIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

and  also — we  shall  see  this  more  fully  hereafter  —  the 
bringer  back  of  men  from  the  world  of  death.  All  these 
characters  belong  to  the  dogs  of  Yama  in  virtue  of  their 
common  name.  They  are  under  this  name  not  unlike  the 
Asvin,  who,  as  we  saw,  were  the  two  winds,  that  of  morn- 
ing and  that  of  evening.1 

Individually,  again,  the  dogs  are  called  Cerbura,  the 
6  spotted,'  and  Syama,  the  '  black.' 2  The  etymological 
connection  between  the  first  of  these  two  names  and 
Cerberus  scarcely  requires  to  be  pointed  out.  It  is  evident, 
therefore,  that  the  dogs  of  Yama  contain  in  their  nature 
the  germs  of  two  distinct  but  allied  creations  of  mytho- 
logy— first  the  wind  god,  who  is  also  a  god  of  evening,  of 
sleep  and  of  death ;  and  secondly  the  hell-hound,  wrho  is 
the  personification  of  the  yawning  tornb.  They  may  some- 
times be  simply  images  of  night.  The  names  '  spotted ' 
and  '  black '  may  seem  to  indicate  the  starry  and  the  dark 
night  sky. 

From  being  personifications  of  night  it  is  an  easy  step 
to  becoming  gods  of  sleep.  Sleep  and  Death  are  ever 
twins';  and  the  dead  man  is,  in  other  creeds  beside  this 
Indian  one,  given  into  the  hands  not  of  one  brother  only, 
but  of  both. 

fie  fjnv  TTOfJLirolfTiv  dfjici  KpcLiTD'olffi   (ptpeaOat, 
'W  /ecu  Qai'dra)  Ci$v/j.ao(ri.3 

One  of  the  hounds  may  have  represented  the  temporal, 
the  other  the  eternal,  sleep.  Wherefore  we  need  not  be 
surprised  to  find  a  single  Sarameyas  prayed  to  as  a  divinity 
of  slumber  and  the  protector  of  the  sleeping  household, 
as  here  in  a  beautiful  hymn  of  the  Eig  Veda : — 4 

Destroyer  of  sickness,  guard  of  the  house,  O  thon  who 
takest  all  shapes,  be  to  us  a  peace-bringing  friend. 

Bay  at  the  robber,  Sarameyas  ;  bay  at  the  thief.  Why  bayest 
thou  at  the  singer  of  Indra  ?  why  art  thou  angry  with  me  ?  Sleep, 
Sarameyas. 

1  Chap.  III.  2  Wilford  in  As.  Res.  iii.  409. 

«  U.  xvi.  681;  cf.  also  Theog.  758.  4  K.  V.  rii.  6 


THE  BRIDGE  OF  SOULS. 

The  mother  sleeps,  the  father  sleeps,  the  hound  sleeps,  the 
clan  father  sleeps,  the  whole  tribe  sleeps  ;  sleep  thou,  Sarameyas. 

Those  who  sleep  by  the  cattle  ;  those  who  sleep  by  the  wain  ; 
the  women  who  lie  upon  couches,  the  sweet-scented  ones — all 
these  we  bring  to  slumber. 

Do  not  these  verses  breathe  of  the  fragrant  air  of  early- 
pastoral  life  ? 

Sleep  and  Death  are  twin  brothers,  and  therefore  it  is 
that,  like  Sarpedon  in  the  Iliad,  the  dead  man  is  given  to 
them  to  be  borne  along  his  way.  '  Give  him,  O  King 
Yama,  to  the  two  dogs.  .  .  .'  As  dogs  the  Sarameyas 
represent  the  horrors  of  death  and  of  the  under  world ;  as 
the  winds  they  are  the  kind  guardians  of  the  souls.  No 
doubt  their  terrors  were  for  the  wicked  only,  and  so  they 
are  apt  images  of  death  itself. 

The  Persians  knew  the  Bridge  of  Souls  under  the  name 
of  Kmv&d  (pul  iHnvac?),  and  with  this  bridge  are  connected 
one  or  more  dogs.  Wherefore  it  is  evident  that  all  the 
essential  parts  of  the  Indian  myth  were  inherited  by  the 
Persians  also.  In  one  Fargard,  or  chapter,  of  the  Vendidad l 
it  is  narrated  how  the  soul  of  the  wicked  man  will  fly  to  the 
under  world  '  with  louder  howling  and  fiercer  pursuing  than 
flees  the  sheep  when  the  wolf  rushes  upon  it  in  the  lofty 
forest.  No  soul  will  come  and  meet  his  departed  soul  and 
help  it  through  the  howls  and  pursuit  in  the  other  world ; 
nor  will  the  dogs  who  keep  the  Kinv&d  bridge  help  his  de- 
parting soul  through  the  howls  and  pursuit  in  the  other 
world.'  And  again  in  another  place ?  it  is  told  how  f  the 
soul  enters  the  way  made  by  Time,  open  both  to  the  wicked 
and  to  the  righteous.  At  the  head  of  -the  Kinv&d,  the  holy 
bridge  made  by  Ahura-Mazda,  they  demand  for  their 
spirits  and  souls  the  reward  for  the  worldly  goods  which 
they  gave  away  here  below.  Then  comes  the  strong,  well- 
formed  maid,3  with  the  dogs  at  her  sides.  She  makes  the 

1  Fargard  xiii.    The  translation  is  from  Darmesteter's  translation  of  the 
Zend-Avesta.  2  Fargard  xix. 

3  AVe  meet  with  this  maiden  keeper  of  the  bridge  in  Norse  mythology 
(see  Chap.  VIII.) 

u  2 


292  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

soul  of  the  righteous  go  up  above  Hara-berezaiti ; l  above 
the  Kinv&d  bridge  she  places  it,  in  the  presence  of  the 
heavenly  gods  themselves.' 

From  the  Persians  the  bridge  became  known  to  the 
Hebrews,  and  from  the  one  or  the  other  source  it  passed 
on  to  the  creed  of  Islam.  Sirat  is  the  name  of  the  bridge 
so  vividly  described  by  Mohammedan  writers.2  It  is  finer 
than  a  hair  and  sharper  than  the  edge  of  a  sword,  and  is 
besides  guarded  with  thorns  and  briars  along  all  its  length. 
Nevertheless  when  at  the  last  day  the  good  Muslim  comes 
to  cross  it  a  light  will  shine  upon  him  from  heaven  and 
he  will  be  snatched  across  like  lightning  or  like  the  wind; 
but  when  the  wicked  man  or  the  unbeliever  approaches 
the  light  will  be  hidden,  and  from  the  extreme  narrowness 
of  the  bridge,  and  likewise  becoming  entangled  in  the 
thorns,  he  will  fall  headlong  into  the  abyss  of  fire  that  is 
beneath. 

The  Bridge  of  Souls  cannot  be  always  the  Milky  Way 
even  in  the  mythology  of  India;  for  in  one  hymn,3 
though  not  a  Vedic  one,  we  read — 

Upon  it,  they  say,  there  are  colours  white  and  blue  and  brown 
and  gold  and  red. 

And  this  path  Brahma  knows ;  and  he  who  has  known 
Brahma  shall  take  it,  he  who  is  pure  and  glorious. 

Here  the  singer  is  evidently  describing  the  rainbow. 
In  the  Norse  cosmology  the  rainbow  has  the  same  name 
as  the  Indian  path  of  the  gods.  The  Eddas  call  it  As -bra, 
the  bridge  of  the  .ZEsir,  or  gods.  Its  other  name  is  Bifrost, 
e  the  trembling  mile,5  and  this  name  may  have  been  origin- 
ally bestowed  upon  the  Milky  Way,  for  this  when  we  look 
at  it  seems  always  on  a  tremble.  Supposing  the  myths 
which  once  belonged  to  the  Milky  Way  to  have  been 
passed  on  to  the  rainbow,  the  name  of  the  former  might 
also  have  been  inherited  by  the  latter. 

1  The  heavenly  mountain.  2  Sale's  Koran,  Introd.  p.  91. 

3  Vrhadarawyaka,  Ed.  Pol.  iii.  4, 7-9.     See  Kuhn,  Zevt.f.  v.  Sp.  ii.  311,  &c. 


THE  MILKY  WAY.  293 

Asbru,  or'Bifrost,  was  the  bridge  whereby  the  Northern 
gods  descended  to  the  world.  One  end  of  it  reached  to  the 
famous  Urdar  fount,  where  sat  the  weird  sisters  three — 
the  Nornir,  or  fates.  '  Near  the  fountain  which  is  under 
the  ash  stands  a  very  fair  house,  out  of  which  come  three 
maidens  named  Urftr,  VerSandi,  and  Skuld  (Past,  Present, 
Future).  These  maidens  assign  the  lifetime  of  men,  and 
are  called  Norns.  To  their  stream  the  gods  ride  every 
day  along  Bifrost  to  take  council.' l  It  was  right  that 
these  awful  embodiments  of  time  and  fate — Past,  Present, 
Future — should  have  their  dwelling  at  the  end  of  the  Bridge 
of  Death. 

Odhinn  is  the  natural  conductor  of  the  dead  to  the 
other  world,  for  he  is  the  god  of  the  wind,  and  therefore 
corresponds,  in  a  certain  degree,  to  the  two  Indian  dogs,  the 
Sarameyas.  '  Odhinn  and  Freyja '  (Air  and  Earth)  '  divide 
the  slain,'  says  one  legend — meaning  that  the  bodies  go  to 
earth,  the  breaths  or  souls  to  heaven.  In  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  Odhinn  worship  had  been  overthrown,  and  the  gods 
of  Asgard  descended  to  Hel-home — that  is  to  say,  when 
from  being  divinities  they  became  fiends — Odhinn  still 
pursued  his  office  as  conductor  or  leader  of  souls.  But 
now  he  hounded  them  to  the  under  world.  Odhinn  the 
god  was  changed  into  the  demon  Odhinn,  and  one  of  the 
commonest  appearances  of  this  fiend  was  as  the  Wild 
Huntsman.  To  this  day  the  Wild  Huntsman  Hackelberg  2 
is  well  known  in  Germany.  The  peasants  hear  his  awful 
chase  going  on  above  their  heads.  He  is  accompanied  by 
two  dogs,  and  he  hunts,  "'tis  said,  along  the  Milky  Way.3 

A  gentler  legend  concerning  the  Milky  Way  is  that 
which  we  find  preserved  in  a  charming  poem  of  the  Swede 
Torpelius,  called  the  'Winter  Street' — another  of  tho 

1  Edda  Snorra,  D.  15. 

2  This  name,  Hackelberg,  shows  the  Huntsman  to  be  really  Odhinn. 
The  name  is  transformed  from  Hackel-biirend,  which  means  '  cloak-bearing. 
Now  the  cloak  of  Odhinn  is  one  of  his  peculiar  possessions. 

3  Of  this  Wild  Huntsman  I  shall  speak  more  fully  in  future  chapters 
(Chaps.  VII.  X.) 


294  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

names  for  this  heavenly  road.  And  with  this  in  the  form 
in  which  it  has  been  rendered  into  English l  we  may  close 
our  list  of  legends  connected  with  the  River  of  Death  and 
Bridge  of  Souls.  The  story  is  of  two  lovers : — 

Her  name  Salami  was,  his  Zulamyth ; 
And  both  so  loved,  each  other  loved.     Thus  runs  the  tender  myth : 

That  once  on  earth  they  lived,  and,  loving  there, 
Were  wrenched  apart  by  night,  and  sorrow,  and  despair ; 
And  when  death  came  at  last,  with  white  wings  given, 
Condemned  to  live  apart,  each  reached  a  separate  heaven. 

Yet  loving  still  upon  the  azure  height/, 
Across  unmeasured  ways  of  splendour,  gleaming  bright 
With  worlds  on  worlds  that  spread  and  glowed  and  burned, 
Each  unto  each,  with  love  that  knew  no  limit,  longing  turned. 

Zulamyth  half  consumed,  until  he  willed 

Out  of  his  strength,  one  night,  a  bridge  of  light  to  build 

Across  the  waste — and  lo  !  from  her  far  sun, 

A  bridge  of  light  from  orb  to  orb  Salami  had  begun. 

A  thousand  years  they  built,  still  on,  with  faith, 
Immeasurable,  quenchless— thus  the  legend  saith— 
Until  the  winter  street  of  light — a  bridge 

Above  heaven's  highest  vault  swung  clear,  remotest  ridge  from 
ridge. 

Fear  seized  the  Cherubim ;  to  Q  od  they  spake — 
'  See  what  amongst  Thy  works,  Almighty,  these  can  make  ! ' 
God  smiled,  and  smiling,  lit  the  spheres  with  joy — 
c  What  in  My  world  love  builds,'  He  said,  '  shall  I — shall  Love — 
destroy  ? ' 

The  bridge  stood  finished,  and  the  lovers  flew 

Into  each  other's  arms  :  when  lo  !  shot  up  and  grew, 

Brightest  in  heavens  serene,  a  star  that  shone 

As  the  heart  shines  serene  after  a  thousand  troubles  gone. 

1  By  E.  Keary,  Evening  Hours,  vol.  iii.  The  name  of  the  bridge,  the 
Winter  Street,  has  a  genuine  Teutonic  character.  The  story,  however,  can- 
not be  purely  Teutonic ;  not  at  least  in  the  form  in  which  Torpelius  tells 
it.  The  names  of  the  lovers  are  Hebrew. 


THE  SEA   OF  DEATH.  295 

§  2.  The  Sea  of  Death. 

Of  all  the  European  races  the  Greeks  were  the  first 
who  took  in  a  friendly  fashion  to  the  sea ;  a  fact  pretty 
evident  from  what  we  can  trace  of  the  routes  taken 
by  their  brother  nations,  and  indeed  indicated  by  the 
peculiarity  of  the  Greek  names  for  the  sea,  names  not, 
like  mare  and  Meer,  connected  with  death,  but  QaKaaaa, 
salt  water,  or  ir6vTos,  a  path.1  The  advantages  of  situa- 
tion which  Greece  enjoyed  are  to  be  credited  with  this 
circumstance.  As  Curtius  points  out  so  well,  where 
Europe  and  Asia  meet  in  the  JCgsean,  Nature  has  made 
no  separation  between  the  two  worlds.  *  Sea  and  air 
unite  the  coasts  of  the  Archipelago  into  a  connected  whole  ; 
the  same  periodical  winds  blow  from  the  Hellespont  as 
far  as  Crete,  and  regulate  navigation  by  the  same  con- 
ditions, and  the  climate  by  the  same  changes.  Scarcely 
one  point  is  to  be  found  between  Asia  and  Europe  where 
in  clear  weather  the  mariner  would  feel  himself  left  in 
solitude  between  sky  and  water ;  the  eye  reaches  from 
island  to  island,  and  easy  voyages  of  a  day  lead  from-  bay 
to  bay.'  It  was  in  this  nearness  of  shore  to  shore,  from 
the  invitation  of  the  islands  spread  out  like  stepping- 
stones  across  the  calm  ^Egsean,  that  the  Greek  people, 
when  their  wanderings  brought  them  to  the  limits  of 
Asia  Minor,  did  not  hesitate  long  before  they  crossed  over 
to  European  Greece  and  joined  the  two  shores  under  the 
dominion  of  one  race. 

Very  early  in  prehistoric  days,  long  before  the  age  of 
Homer,  they  had  become  familiar  with  their  own  Greek 
sea,  with  all  its  islands  and  all  its  harbours;  but  it  was 
long  after  this  that  their  mariners  had  rounded  Cape 
Matapan ;  longer  still  before  the  first  Greek  had  sailed  as 
far  as  Sicily.  Some  tidings  of  the  distant  lands  of  the 
Mediterranean  were  brought  by  Phcenician  navigators, 
and  afterwards  by  their  own  more  adventurous  sailors ; 
1  Connected  with  the  Skr.  panthas,  patha  and  our  path. 


296  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

and  with  this  slender  stock  of  real  knowledge,  imagina- 
tion was  busy  in  mingling  the  stories  of  a  mythic 
world.  Whatsoever  had  in  former  times  been  dreamt 
of  concerning  the  Caspian  Sea,  was  now  transferred 
to  the  Mediterranean.  And  in  this  way  among  the  most 
poetic  and  imaginative  of  all  the  Aryan  peoples  was 
formed  the  great  epic  of  the  Sea  of  Death.  This  is  the 
Odyssey.1 

The  Odyssey  is  generally  admitted  to  be  of  a  more 
recent  date  than  the  Iliad.  The  morality  of  it  is  ob- 
servably higher  in  character;  the  gods  have  grown 
better,  more  worthy  of  reverence.  The  conception  of 
Zeus,  for  example,  is  far  nobler  in  the  Odyssey ;  here  he 
appears  constantly  as  the  protector  of  the  poor,  and  of 
wanderers  and  strangers.2  All  these  are  notable  points 
of  difference  between  the  two  epics.  But  the  essential 
distinction  between  the  two  lies  in  the  difference  of  the 
subjects  with  which  they  deal,  the  diversity  of  interests 
which  they  represent.  The  Iliad  is  a  tale  of  land  battle, 
and  the  theatre  of  ifcs  action  is  limited  to  the  known  world 
of  the  Greek,  the  two  shores  of  the  -ZEgsean ;  the  Odyssey 


1  The  expedition  of  the  Argonauts  was  always  held  in  Greek  tradition 
to  have  preceded  the  expedition  of  Odysseus.    It  belongs  to  the  '  antiquity ' 
of  Homer.     No  circumstantial  account  of  it,  however,  is  to  be  found  until 
a  much  later  date  than  that  of  the  Odyssey ;  therefore  it  is  right  to  consider 
the  latter  poem  as  the  first  great  epic  of  the  Sea  of  Death.     That  the 
voyage  of  the  Argonauts  was  originally  of  the  same  kind  as  the  voyage  of 
Odysseus,  and  undertaken  in  the  same  direction,  seems  highly  probable.     In 
after  years  the  former  was  transmuted  into  an  expedition  to  Cholchis  and 
to  the  river  Phasis.     But  there  is  no  trace  of  that  form  of  the  legend  in 
Homer.      All  that  is  there  said  is  that  Jason's  voyage  was  made  to  the 
house  of  2Eetes  (Od.  xii.  70).     Nowhere  is  it  said  that  the  land  lay  to  the 
eastward ;   nothing  in  the  earliest  tradition  points  to  that  voyage  in  the 
Euxine  and  up  the  Phasis,  which  we  meet  first  in  Pindar  and  afterwards  in 
a  more  elaborate  shape  in  Apollonius  Rhodius.     The  golden  fleece  might 
seem  (to  a  lover  of  dawn  myths)  to  suggest  the  dawn ;  but  it  does  not  so 
any  more  than  do  the  apples  of  the  Hesperides.     The  myth  of  these  latter 
is  a  myth  of  sunset.     ^Eetes  is  the  brother  of  Circe,  and  son  of  Helios  and 
Perse.      He  is,  like  Circe,  connected  with  the  setting  sun,  and   so  with 
death.     He  is  a  kind  of  god  of  death,  and  for  that  reason  is  called  '  death- 
designing'  (o\o6(f>(wv~). — Od.  x.  137. 

2  Cf.  especially  Od.  vii.  165,  316;  ix.  270;  xiv.  57,  283-4;  xvi.  422. 


THE  ODYSSEY.  297 

is  a  song  in  praise  not  of  war,  but  of  seafaring  adventure, 
and  the  hero  of  it  is  not  a  type  of  the  warrior,  but  of  the 
navigator.  For  Greece,  in  prehistoric  days,  had  her 
gallant  band  of  Columbuses  and  De  Gamas,  of  Drakes 
and  Hudsons,  and  it  was  these  discoverers  who  paved  the 
way  for  Greek  supremacy  over  seas.  Such  men  had 
different  views  of  life  and  a  different  worship  from 
those  of  the  settled  nobility  of  Greece,  the  Ionian  prin- 
ces, for  instance,  for  whom  the  Iliad  was  composed; 
and  this  divergency  in  views  of  life  and  worship  ap- 
pears very  strikingly  on  a  comparison  of  the  two  great 
poems. 

The  original  sea  god  of  the  Greek  race  had  been 
Poseidon ;  but  in  the  Odyssey  Poseidon  is  superseded  by 
Athene,1  who,  when  we  put  aside  Zeus,  stands  by  far  the 
first  among  the  remaining  divinities.  The  Odyssey  seems 
to  be  written  expressly  to  glorify  Athene,  and  to  display 
her  power ;  for  she  is  the  active  divinity  throughout.  She 
wields  all  those  forces  of  nature  which  in  the  Iliad  are 
made  the  peculiar  possession  of  Zeus  himself,  controlling 
the  storm  and  sending  the  lightning.  No  other  deity 
appears  actively  upon  the  scene,  saving  the  rival  of 
Athene,  the  older  sea  god,  Poseidon,  and  he  is  defeated 
in  his  endeavours  to  bring  destruction  on  Odysseus.  With 
Athene  the  Odyssey  glorifies  the  sailor  and  a  sailor's  life. 
It  celebrates  all  the  luxuries  which  the  voyager  brings 
home  from  foreign  lands ;  and  chiefly  among  them  those 
treasures  of  art  which,  first  introduced  by  the  Phoenicians, 
were  beginning  at  the  time  in  which  the  Odyssey  was 
composed  to  stir  the  spirit  of  young  Greece.  Of  the  sailor, 
as  goddess  of  the  sea  (Tritogeneia),  of  the  merchantman, 
to  whom  she  gives  prudence  and  the  power  to  deceive,  of 

1  In  the  Odyssey  we  see  a  transfer  to  Athene"  of  some  of  the  powers 
over  the  sea,  which  in  the  Iliad  belong  exclusively  to  Poseidon.  In  the 
Odyssey,  moreover,  we  find  that  Zeus  has  to  a  great  extent  delegated  to 
lesser  gods  the  control  over  the  phenomena  of  nature  which  were  once 
specially  his,  and  that  the  powers  of  wind  and  storm  are  swayed  alter- 
nately by  Poseidon  and  Athene.  See  particularly  bk.  v 


298  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF, 

the  artist,  whom  she  endows  with  cunning  of  hand,  Athene 
is  alike  the  patroness. 

But  there  are  further  points  of  difference  between  the 
Iliad  and  the  Oydssey.  The  navigator  had  other  dangers 
to  encounter  than  the  warrior  had,  and  different  ad- 
ventures to  relate.  The  Western  Sea,  to  which  men's 
thoughts  were  beginning  to  turn,  and  where  Odysseus' 
adventures  lie,  was  not  to  their  fancy  fraught  witli  earthly 
terrors  only,  nor  with  dangers  that  were  measurable  and 
known;  it  was  full  of  untried  wonders,  bordering  as 
it  did  close  upon  the  other  world ;  nay,  in  a  manner  it 
was  the  other  world,  for  it  was  the  Sea  of  Death.  The 
Odyssey  is  full  of  images  of  death,  though  they  are  not 
self-conscious  ones,  only  mythical  expressions  first  used  for 
the  passage  of  the  soul  from  life,  and  then  made  literal  by 
their  transference  to  the  actual  Western  Sea.  All  this 
produces  a  marked  distinction  in  character  between  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  Long  before  the  first  outward- 
bound  navigator  had  rounded  Cape  Malea,  all  the  coasts  of 
the  j33gsean  had  become  part  of  the  familiar  world  of  the 
Greek;  outside  this  only  was  the  world  of  the  unknown. 
The  Iliad  tells  us  what  the  Greeks  thought  about  the 
known  region.  Myths  no  doubt  mingled  with  the  legend 
of  the  fall  of  Troy ;  but  that  story  is,  in  Homer,  essentially 
realistic ;  it  is  rationalistic  even.  The  very  powers  of  the 
immortals  and  their  deeds  seem  petty  and  limited. 

And  it  may  be  that  in  this  circumstance  lies  an  element 
of  superior  greatness  in  the  older  poem  ;  for  a  poet  can 
only  attain  the  highest  altitudes  he  is  capable  of  when 
the  material  of  his  art  is  composed,  I  will  not  say  of  fact, 
but  of  belief  which  has  become  so  constant  and  familiar 
as  to  take  almost  the  shape  of  fact.  That  sense  of  reality 
which  drags  down  prosaic  minds  is  for  him  the  proper 
medium  of  his  flight  -t  no  sham  beliefs  or  half-beliefs  are 
at  his  best  moments  possible  to  him.  We  should,  perhaps, 
never  have  had  the  '  Divine  Comedy '  unless  the  vulgar 
literalness  of  priestly  minds,  confounding  metaphors  with 


THE   ODYSSEY.  299 

fact,  had  in  its  pseudo-philosophy  mapped  out  the  circles 
of  Heaven  and  Hell,  as  an  astronomer  maps  out  the  craters 
of  the  moon.  The  poet  of  the  Iliad  has  over  him  of  the 
Odyssey  an  advantage,  so  far  as  the  former  is  dealing  with 
the  known  regions  of  Greek  life  and  as  the  other  is  cast 
abroad  upon  a  sea  of  speculation  and  fancy. 

Not  of  course  that  even  the  later  poern  had  not  to  its 
hearers  the  air  of  a  narrative  of  fact,  or  was  without  some 
foundation  in  experience.  Some  writers  have  attempted 
to  explain  the  Odyssey  as  nothing  more  than  a  myth  of 
the  sun's  course  through  heaven.  But  there  is  too  much 
solidity  about  the  story,  too  thorough  an  atmosphere  of 
belief  around  it,  to  suit  with  a  tale  relating  such  airy 
unrealities  as  these.  The  Greeks  who  first  sang  these 
ballads  must  have  been  thinking  of  a  real  journey  made 
upon  this  solid  earth.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  how  many 
itn.iges  and  notions  which  had  first  been  applied  only  to 
the  sun  god  on  his  Western  journey  would  creep  into  a 
hisfcory  like  that  of  Odysseus.  Undoubtedly  the  sun  myth 
had  first  pointed  out  the  home  of  the  dead  as  lying  in  the 
West;  and  nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  a  people 
whose  hopes  and  wishes  carried  them  in  the  track  of  the 
wandering  sun  should,  when  they  came  to  construct  an 
epic  of  travel,  make  the  imaginary  journey  lie  the  same 
way. 

They  would  interweave  in  their  story  such  truths — or 
such  sailors'  yarns — as  Phoenician  mariners  or  adventurous 
Greeks  brought  home  from  the  distant  waters,  with  many 
images  which  had  once  been  made  for  the  sun's  heavenly 
voyage,  and  others  which  had  been  first  applied  to  death. 
Their  geography  would  be  mythical ;  for  they  could  have 
no  accurate  notion  of  the  lands  which  they  spoke  of; l  but 


1  Mr.  Bunbury,  among  more  recent  writers,  has  admirably  shown  how 
completely  mythical  is  the  character  of  the  geography  of  the  Odyssey 
(Geography  of  the  Ancients).  See  also  Volcker,  Homerische  Geographic;  and 
Welcker,  in  Rhein.  Mm.  vol.  i.  N.S.  p.  219,  'Die  Homerische  PhJiaken,' on 
the  pretended  identification  of  Scheria  and  Corcyra. 


300  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

it  would  not  be  without  a  kernel  of  reality,  a  thin  sub- 
stratum of  fact  overlaid  by  a  world  of  fancy.  Euhemerist 
geographers,  like  Pliny  or  Strabo,  may  try  to  give  to  the 
Western  paradises  of  the  Greeks  a  local  position  by  identi- 
fying the  gardens  of  the  Hcsperides  with  the  land  near 
Oeuta,  or  with  some  island  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Justin 
Martyr  says  that  these  are  one  with  the  Biblical  Paradise.1 
Each  is  in  his  way  right.  Can  we  say  that  the  mythic 
golden  apples  were  not  the  first  citrons  brought  to  Greece  ? 

Beside  some  such  slender  threads  of  truth  the  adven- 
tures of  Odysseus  are  built  upon  what  men's  imaginations 
told  them  might  lie  in  the  Western  seas.  Now  in  reality 
there  was  only  one  thing  which  at  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts  they  believed  actually  did  lie  there — namely,  Death ; 
and  beyond  that  death  the  home  of  the  departed  souls. 
Therefore  their  stories  of  the  Mediterranean  do  almost  all, 
upon  a  minute  inspection,  resolve  themselves  into  a  variety 
of  mythical  ways  of  describing  death,  and  upon  this  as 
upon  a  dark  background  the  varied  colours  of  the  tale  are 
painted.  It  need  take  away  no  jot  of  our  pleasure  in  the 
brilliant  picture  presented  before  us  to  acknowledge  this. 
Behind  the  graceful  air  of  the  poem,  sung  as  a  poem  only, 
we  hear  a  deeper  note  telling  of  the  passionate,  obstinate 
questionings  of  futurity  which  belonged  not  more  to  Greece 
three  thousand  years  ago  than  they  now  belong  to  us. 

The  tale  of  the  great  traveller  could  not  at  the  first 
have  been  so  full  as  we  find  it  in  its  present  shape. 
Evidently  fresh  adventures  have  continually  been  interpo- 
lated in  the  history,  to  give  it  richness  and  variety.2  Myths 
at  the  outset  are  not  rich  nor  varied;  they  are  almost 
always  confined  to  a  single  theme,  and  the  action  in  them 
obeys  the  rule  of  e  unity '  more  strictly  than  do  those  of 
the  most  classical  dramas.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that 
many  single  stories  have  been  rolled  into  one  to  make  this 
great  epic.  We  notice,  moreover,  that  one  series  of  events 
occurs  in  a  narrative  related  during  the  course  of  another 
1  Coliort,  ad  Gracos,  xxix.  2  Cf.  Butcher  and  Lang,  Od.  2nd  ed.  p.  xxiv. 


CALYPSO  AND  CIRC&  301 

series.  All  the  events  which  Odysseus  recounts  while 
sitting  in  the  hall  of  Alcinoiis,  though  they  are  supposed 
to  tell  the  earlier  history  of  his  voyage,  are  no  doubt 
additions  to  the  original  tale,  which  follows  directly  the 
course  of  the  poem  till  the  wanderer  is  brought  to  the 
island  of  the  Phseacians,  and  then  takes  up  its  interrupted 
thread  when  his  story  is  finished  and  Alcinoiis  prepares 
his  return  voyage  to  Greece.  An  experience  of  the  growth 
of  myths  and  epics  teaches  us  to  look  upon  the  two  series 
as  two  distinct  legends  which  have  in  this  awkward  way 
been  forced  into  one  story;  one  being  more  expanded 
than  the  other,  and  therefore  perhaps  of  a  later  date. 

Looking  into  the  two  series  of  adventures  more  closely, 
and  comparing  them  together,  we  discover  that  many 
circumstances  of  one  appear  to  be  retold  in  a  different 
shape  in  the  other.  Take,  for  instance,  the  life  of  Odys- 
seus with  Calypso  and  with  Circe,  and  the  manner  of 
his  deliverance  from  each.  Both  Calypso  and  Circe  are 
nymphs  and  enchantresses ;  with  each  Odysseus  passes  a 
term  of  months  or  years,  living  with  her  as  her  husband, 
but  longing  all  the  while  to  return  to  his  own  wife  and 
his  own  home ;  from  each  Hermes  at  last  sets  him  free. 
What  if  the  Calypso  and  Circe  episodes  both  repeat  in 
reality  the  same  myth?  And  what  if  Odysseus'  other 
great  adventure,  the  voyage  to  the  Phseacians,  have  like- 
wise its  counterpart  in  the  expanded  story  ?  The  question 
of  the  real  identity  or  difference  between  the  two  series 
of  adventures  can  only  be  decided  when  we  have  had 
time  thoroughly  to  test  the  significance  which  there  is  in 
the  points  of  their  apparent  likeness. 

Meanwhile  who  is  Calypso?  Her  name  bespeaks  her 
nature  not  ambiguously.  It  is  from  Kakinrrsiv,  to  cover 
or  conceal.  She  is  the  shrouder  or  the  shrouded  place; 
the  literal  counterpart  of  the  Norse  Hel,  which  word  is,  as 
has  been  said,  from  the  Icelandic  helja,  e  to  hide.'  How, 
then,  can  Calypso  be  anything  else  than  death,  as  she 
dwells  there  in  her  cave  by  the  shores  of  the  sea?  How 


302  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

can  Odysseus'  life  with  her,  and  his  sleep  in  her  cave,  be 
anything  else  than  an  image  of  dying?  The  gods  have 
determined  that  the  hero  shall  not  remain  in  his  mortal 
sleep  for  ever ;  so  Hermes  is  sent  with  their  commands  to 
Calypso  to  let  Odysseus  go.  Hermes  is  the  god  whose 
mission  it  is  to  lead  souls  down  to  the  realm  of  Hades — 
the  psychopomp,  as  in  this  office  he  is  called.  But  some- 
times he  comes  upon  an  opposite  errand,  to  restore  men  to 
life ;  the  staff  which  closes  the  eyes  of  mortals  may  like- 
wise open  them  when  asleep.  Therefore  the  interference 
of  Hermes  between  Calypso  and  Odysseus  is  full  of  sig- 
nificance ;  and  we  accordingly  meet  the  same  episode  in 
the  Circe  tale.  If  Circe's  name  do  not  reveal  her  nature 
so  nakedly  as  Calypso's  name  shows  hers,  yet  we  easily 
recognise  by  it  death  in  one  of  its  many  guises — a  ravenous 
animal  or  bird,  a  hawk  or  a  wolf.1 

For  my  part,  I  think  that  the  tale  divides  at  the  point 
where  we  see  Odysseus  in  the  house  of  one  or  other  of  the 
two  enchantresses ;  and  that,  starting  from  the  island  of 
Ogygia  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  that  of  .SCoea  on  the 
other,  we  have  before  us  two  successive  pictures  of  the 
fate  of  a  man's  soul  after  it  has  passed  the  house  of  death. 
And  I  think,  again,  that  the  wanderings  of  Odysseus 
before  he  comes  to  the  island  of  Circe  may  be  taken  for 
an  image  of  the  Western  Sea  on  this  side  of  the  dark 
portal,  the  Western  Sea  which,  though  full  of  suggestions 
of  mortality,  has  not  yet  quite  become  the  Sea  of  Death. 
One  order  of  pictures  we  may  call  cosmic,  or  belonging  to 
this  world ;  the  other  is  hypercosrnic,  and  appears  only 
when  we  have  passed  the  boundary  which  separates  this 
world  from  the  next.  But  of  course  this  distinction 
expresses  only  the  general  character  of  the  two  parts  of 
the  epic.  That  general  difference  does  not  hinder  the 

1  KipKos  (whence  /ci'p/oj)  is  given  as  both  hawk  and  wolf  in  L.  and  S.  It  is 
most  likely  from  a  root  krik,  meaning  to  make  a  grating  sound,  and  there- 
fore probably  originally  applied  to  the  bird  (cf .  our  night-jar).  We  may, 
then,  compare  Circe"  with  Charon,  '  an  eagle.' 


ELEMENTS   OF  THE  EPIC. 


303 


two  orders  of  ideas,  the  worldly  and  the  other-worldly,  from 
mingling  at  many  points.  They  are,  indeed,  so  closely 
allied  as  to  l>e  not  easily  distinguishable.  The  whole 
journey,  including  both  images  of  death  and  images  which 
apply  to  the  region  beyond  death,  is  foreshadowed  in  the 
earlier  parts  of  the  voyage,  in  those  parts  which  precede 
the  arrival  at  the  house  of  the  Queen  of  Shades.  It  is,  in 
fact,  as  if  we  had  first  to  pass  through  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  and  while  there  to  anticipate  in  a  faint 
show  the  clearer  vision  which  will  come  after  dissolution 
itself.1 

1  There  being,  according  to  my  view,  only  one  essential  idea  at  the 
bottom  of  the  myth  of  the  Odyssean  voyages— namely,  the  idea  of  death 
and  the  next  world — it  follows  that  the  chief  adventures  of  the  hero  must 
constantly  repeat  themselves  in  new  shapes. 

The  essential  myth  of  the  Sea  of  Death  divides  itself  into  three  parts 
— viz.  Death,  the  Earthly  Paradise,  and  the  Return  Voyage  to  the  Land  of 
the  Living.  Of  these  the  first  two  are  the  most  important  and  the  most 
constantly  repeated.  They  should  always  recur  in  the  same  order.  It 
may  help  the  reader  to  a  due  understanding  of  the  myths  if  I  tabulate 
them  in  the  order  in  which  they  were  supposed  to  occur  under  the  heads 
above  mentioned.  The  Sea  of  Death  is  entered  when  Odysseus  has  left 
Cythera. 

The  The  Return  to 

Death.  Earthly  Paradise,  the  Land  of  the  lAmng. 

Odysseus'  voyage  to 


First  Series 


The  Lotophagi 
I  (or  sleep  preceding 

death). 
The  Cyclopes. 


Second  Series  - 


Third  Series 


Laestrygones. 


Hades. 


Sirens. 


Fourth  Series  |       Calypso. 


within  one  day's  sail  of 
The  JSolian      Ithaca.    This  is  broken 
Island.  short  in  order  that  the 

subsequent  adventures 
may  be  tacked  on. 

This  is  the  myth  of  the  most  gloomy 
sort.  Here  we  only  distinguish  three 
stages  in  the  journey  of  the  soul  to 
the  land  of  shades.  There  is  no  Para- 
dise beyond  death. 

The  voyage  from 
Thrinakia  should  have" 
been  to  the  land  of  the 
living,  but  it  takes  a 
different  direction  for 
the  same  reason  which 
altered  the  course  of 
the  voyage  fromJiolia. 

|       Return  to  Ithaca. 


Thrinakia. 


|    Phasacians. 

These  parts  again  coalesce  somewhat,  and  the  grand  division  remains 
where  I  have  put  it  at  the  adventures  with  Circe  and  Calypso.     Of  those 


301  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

We  have  but  to  translate  the  story  of  Homer  into  a 
simpler  mythical  language  to  detect  the  unreal  character 
of  its  events,  and  to  feel  fully  the  imaginative  region  into 
which  the  poet  has  strayed.  If  the  tale  had  been  told 
by  our  Norse  fore-elders  it  would  have  been  clothed  in 
such  transparent  language ;  and  we  may  for  the  nonce 
rechristen  the  scenes  of  Odysseus'  adventures  with  the 
names  which  a  Northern  bard  would  have  given  them. 

First,  then,  we  have  the  voyage  to  Sleep  Home.  The 
wind  which  bore  him  from  Ilium  carried  the  hero  to  the 
land  of  the  Cicones,  and  thence  to  Cythera — historical 
places  within  the  compass  of  the  ^Egean.  After  that  he 
rounded  Cape  Malea,  and  burst  into  the  sea  of  wonders 
where  his  course  was  to  lie  so  long.  The  shore  at  which 
Odysseus  next  touched  was  the  shore  of  the  Lotophagi, 
who  ate  the  lotus  flower  or  fruit  for  food.  '  And  whoever 
partook  of  that  pleasant  fruit  no  more  wished  to  tell  of 
his  coming  home,  nor  to  go  back  thither ;  but  they  choose 
rather  to  stay  with  the  lotus-eaters  and  to  forget  their 
return.'  This  is  Sleep  Home. 

And  now  on  to  Giant  Land,  where  the  Cyclopes  dwell. 
The  Norsemen,  we  know,  had  their  Giant  Home  (Jotun- 
heimar),  on  the  borders  of  the  world.  Their  gods  ruled 
over  Asgard  and  Man's  Home ;  but  the  power  of  the  JQsir 
did  not  stretch  beyond  the  world  of  men.  They  had  only 
so  far  shown  their  might  that  they  were  able  to  banish 
the  jotun  brood  from  the  ordered  world.  Outside  the  limits 
of  that  the  giants  lived  in  defiance  of  them,  and  were  for 
ever  threatening  to  invade  the  home  of  gods  and  men. 
Something  the  same  had  been  the  history  of  the  Titans 

which  follow  one  is  essentially  a  story  of  the  voyage  to  heaven,  the  other 
essentially  a  story  of  the  journey  to  hell. 

The  recurrence  of  the  number  nine  has  been  remarked  upon  in  the 
adventures  of  Odysseus,  and  assigned  as  a  reason  for  supposing  it  a  sun 
myth.  The  hero  is  nine  days  after  first  leaving  the  known  world,  i.e.  after 
rounding  Cape  Malea,  before  he  sights  land,  the  land  of  the  Lotophagi ;  he 
is  nine  days  again  sailing  homewards  from  the  island  of 


THE  CYCLOPS.  305 

and  giants  of  the  Greek  cosmology.  Zeus  had  banished 
these  to  a  Tartarean  land,  unvisited  by  sun  or  breath  of 
winds,  that  land  where  lapetus l  aJhd  Kronos  dwell  for 
ever. 

The  essential  picture  in  Greek  and  Norse  mythology 
is  the  same;  it  is  of  a  sunny  world  ruled  by  the  gods, 
beyond  it  the  dark  Giant  Land.  To  this  region  and  to  the 
Titan  brood  the  Cyclopes  belong.  'They  care  not  for 
aegis-bearing  Zeus,  nor  -the  blessed  gods.' 2  They  plough 
not,  nor  sow.  They  have  no  assemblages  for  council  nor 
any  public  law ;  each  is  a  law  unto  himself  and  to  his 
household,  and  heeds  not  his  neighbour.  They  live  in 
caves  upon  the  mountain-tops  and  through  the  windy 
promontories.3 

Odysseus  landed  first  upon  an  uninhabited  island  close 
by  the  island  of  the  Cyclopes.  There  immense  flocks  of 
goats  fed  undisturbed,  for  the  Cyclopes  had  never  reached 
that  near  coast,  because  they  had  no  art  of  ship- building 
and  no  '  crimson-prowed  barks.'  This  is  a  little  touch 
of  reality,  a  reminiscence  of  some  land  where  the  ignor- 
ance of  the  inhabitants  in  matters  of  seamanship — displa}red 
so  clearly  by  such  an  instance  of  a  neighbouring  island 
unvisited — had  struck  the  attention  of  mariners. 

Next  Odysseus  and  his  comrades  went  on  to  the 
Cyclops'  island,  and  while  the  rest  stayed  in  the  ship  the 
hero  and  twelve  others  ascended  from  the  shore  to  spy  out 
the  land.  Here  we  have  the  first  detailed  picture  of  the 
Giant  Land  of  Greek  mythology.  When  they  had  gone 
but  a  little  way  inland  they  saw  on  the  land's  edge  a  cave 
near  to  the  sea,  but  high  up  and  hidden  by  laurel  trees. 
Around  were  stalled  much  cattle,  and  sheep  and  goats. 
And.  a  high  wall  was  built  there  with  deep-embedded 
stones  and  with  tall  pines  and  towering  oaks.  'Twas  the 
dwelling  of  a  huge  man  who  by  himself  was  feeding  his 

1  Father  of  Prometheus  and  of  Atlas.    (See  Ch.  IV.) 
2  Od.  ix.  275.  *  Od.  ix.  105-106,  400. 

X 


306  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

flocks  afar  off.  He  did  not  fellow  with  his  kind,  but  in 
solitude  fed  upon  evil  thoughts.  A  horrid  monster  he, 
not  like  food-eating  men,  but  liker  to  the  woody  top  of 
some  great  mountain  standing  alone. 

The  name  of  this  giant  was  Polyphemus.  Odysseus  and 
his  comrades  hid  themselves  in  the  cavern  to  await  Poly- 
phemus' return. 

'He  came  bearing  a  huge  burden  of  dried  wood  to 
light  his  evening  meal.  Inside  th*e  cave  he  threw  it  down 
with  a  mighty  noise,  and  we  in  terror  hid  ourselves  in  the 
recesses  of  the  cave.  Then  drove  he  into  the  wide  cavern 
of  his  fat  flocks  all  those  whom  he  would  milk ;  the  males, 
the  rams  and  goats,  he  left  outside  that  deep  hall's  door. 
Then  he  fixed  up  a  barrier  great  and  weighty.  Two-and- 
twenty  wains  could  not  have  moved  that  mighty  rock. 
And  he  sat  down  and  milked  the  sheep  and  goats  duly, 
and  to  each  one  set  its  young.'  And  when  he  had  lit  his 
fire  he  saw  the  wanderers  and  spake  to  them. 

'  0  strangers,  who  are  ye,  and  whence  have  ye  plied 
o'er  the  moist  ways  hither  'P  Was  it  for  barter,  or  come  ye 
as  pirates,  who  wander,  their  lives  in  their  hands,  bringing 
evil  on  all  men  ? ' 

And  Odysseus  :  e  We  are  strayed  Greeks  from  Troy, 
driven  by  contrary  winds  over  the  sea's  grea.t  deep.  And 
now,  in  search  of  our  homes,  have  we  come  another  road 
by  other  ways.  .  .  .  But  do  thou,  best  one,  revere  the 
gods.  We  are  suppliants  to  thee,  and  Zeus  avenges  the 
cause  of  strangers  and  suppliants.' 

And  he  with  savage  mind  replied,  '  Foolish  art  thou,  O 
wanderer,  to  tell  me  to  fear  or  shun  the  wrath  of  the  gods. 
The  Cyclopes  care  not  for  aegis-bearing  Zeus  nor  the  blessed 
gods.  .  .  .'  Then  he  fell  upon  them  and  seized  two  of 
the  comrades  of  Odysseus ;  seized  them  like  whelps  and 
dashed  them  down  to  the  ground,  and  their  brains  flowed 
out  and  moistened  the  ground.  f  In  despair,  weeping,  we 
held  up  our  hands  to  Zeus.' 

In  Saxon  legend  we  shall   hereafter  meet  with  the 


THE  CYCLOPS.  307 

counterpart  of  this  giant,  the  f  eotan '  Grendel,1  and  see 
him  snatching  up  his  victims  in  the  same  manner  and 
devouring  them.  The  Cyclopes  personify  immediately  the 
storm  or  the  stormy  sky,  in  which  the  sun,  like  an  angry 
eye,  glares  through  the  clouds.  As  a  part  of  the  giant 
race  the  Cyclopes  represent  also  the  uncultivated  and 
uncultivable  tracts  of  country,  the  out-world  region,  that 
which  was  in  the  language  of  other  times  the  heathen 
world — the  world  of  heath  and  wild  moor.  To  the  Teutons 
the jotun  or  eotan  race  had  the  same  meaning;  wherefore 
is  this  Grendel's  home  f  amoiig  the  moors  and  misty  hills.' 2 
First  representing  the  outer  regions  of  nature,  the  parts 
remotest  from  men  and  from  the  safety  of  towns  and 
villages,  the  giant  kind  in  all  mythologies  personify  like- 
wise the  outer  world  or  other  world  itself,  the  land  of 
death.  As  we  shall  see  in  a  future  chapter,  there  is  no 
distinct  line  of  demarcation  between  the  Norse  Jotunheim 
and  Helheim — Giant-home  and  Hel's  Home.  Many  among 
the  inhabitants  of  Jotunheim  are  by  their  names  seen  to  be 
personifications  of  the  funeral  fire,  or  of  the  grave.  The 
Cyclopes  do  not  display  their  character  so  nakedly  as  do 
the  giants  of  the  North,  but  we  easily  admit  that  their 
home  also  must  lie  by  the  Sea  of  Death  and  near  the 
borders  of  another  world. 

Or  again,  we  may,  merely  looking  upon  the  Cyclopes 
as  monsters,  take  them  for  symbols  of  the  all-devouring 
grave.  We  should  then  have  to  compare  them  with  the 
man-eating  ogre  of  mediaeval  European  folk  lore. 

How  Odysseus  and  his  companions  escaped  from  Poly- 
phemus' cave  does  not  need  telling  here.  It  is  rather 
with  the  imagery  of  the  strange  regions  into  which  the 
wanderers  come,  than  with  the  details  of  their  adventures, 
that  we  have  to  do.  Everyone  knows  too  in  what  way 
the  wily  Greek  plotted  revenge  upon  the  giant,  and  his 

1  Chapter  VII.    And  very  similar  to  Grendel  is  the  giant  tfushna  of  the 
Rig  Veda,  '  who  walks  in  darkness.' 
*  See  Chap.  VII. 

x  2 


308  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

own  and  his  comrades'  escape  ;  how  he  produced  his  wine 
skins  with  a  beverage  never  before  tasted  by  the  Cyclops, 
how  Polyphemus  became  drunk  with  the  wine,  and  how 
Odysseus  and  his  fellows,  seizing  an  immense  bar  which 
they  had  previously  heated  in  the  fire,  bored  with  that 
into  the  Cyclops'  single  eye  and  blinded  him  so ;  and, 
finally,  how,  tied  beneath  the  bellies  of  the  sheep,  they 
eluded  his  vigilance  and  made  their  way  into  the  open  air. 

They  have  been  to  Sleep  Home,  and  thence  to  Giant 
Land  ;  their  next  stage  is  to  Wind  Home.  I  have  said  that 
the  details  of  the  earlier  adventures  are  often  a  faint  fore- 
shadowing of  the  later  ones  ;  and  in  the  -ZEolian  island  I 
see  a  sort  of  prediction  of  the^earthly  paradise  which  we 
shall  meet  again  in  larger  dimensions  and  brighter  colours 
when  we  come  to  the  land  of  the  Phseacians.  On  this 
floating  land  dwelt  .ZEolus,  son  of  Hippotas,  dear  to  the 
immortals.  All  round  the  island  was  a  brazen  wall,  irre- 
fragible ;  and  a  smooth  rock  rose  up  to  meet  the  wall. 
To  jiEolus  had  been  born  in  his  palace  twelve  children,  six 
girls  and  six  strong  sons.  And  he  gave  his  daughters  for 
wives  to  his  sons.  And  these  feasted  together  continually 
about  their  dear  father  and  honoured  mother,  and  dainty 
food  they  lacked  not.  And  the  sweet-scented  hall  echoed 
to  tBeir  voices  by  day,  and  by  night  they  slept  beside 
their  chaste  wives  on  napery  and  bedsteads  ornamented. 

Are  we  not  now  getting  nearer  to  the  homes  of  Para- 
dise ?  For,  see,  the  charm  of  the  land  of  sleep  lay  only  in 
the  '  pleasant  food '  of  flowers,  which  made  men  forget  all 
that  they  had  suffered  and  what  they  had  still  to  endure. 
Prom  this  calm  we  awoke  to  find  ourselves  in  the  devour- 
ing cavern  of  death;  and  the  place  we  come  to  now  seems 
certainly  a  kind  of  paradise  beyond  death.  Dante,  it  is 
true,  placed  his  Wind  Home  at  the  outside  of  Hell.  But 
then  he  spoke  the  thoughts  of  mediaeval  Catholicism,  which 
darkened  all  the  pictures  of  the  future  life.  Wind  Home 
might  quite  as  well  lie  on  the  borders  of  Paradise. 

Of  course  this  picture  of  the  JEoliaii  land  is  but  as  a 


THE  7EOLIAN  ISLAND.  30JJ 

minor  note  anticipating  the  end  of  the  piece.  We  have 
by  no  means  yet  passed  out  of  the  mortal  sea ;  the  giants 
will  appear  again,  and  more  images  of  death  than  any  we 
have  yet  encountered.  Nevertheless  it  is  true  that  in 
these  its  first  three  scenes — Sleep  Home,  Giant  Home,  and 
Wind  Home — we  get  a  faint  picture  of  the  whole  drama 
of  Odysseus'  voyage.  But  to  continue  the  story. 

In  friendly  wise  JEolus  entertained  Odysseus  for  a 
whole  month,  and  enquired  everything  of  him  touching 
Ilium  and  the  Grecian  ships  and  the  Greeks'  return  ;  '  and 
all  things  I  related  as  they  were.  And  when  at  length 
I  asked  for  a  journey  and  would  have  him  send  me  away, 
he  did  not  refuse,  but  prepared  my  voyage.  Of  a  niiie- 
year-old  ox's  skin  he  made  a  bag.  And  in  it  he  tied 
the  ways  of  blustering  winds  ;  for  Kronion  made  him  the 
keeper  of  the  winds,  to  hush  or  raise  whiche'er  he  would. 
.  .  .  With  a  bright  silver  chord  he  bound  it  in  the  hollow 
ship,  that  not  the  smallest  breath  might  escape.  To  me 
he  gave  West  Wind,  to  waft  our  ships  and  us.  But  he 
was  not  fated  to  perform  it :  our  own  folly  was  our  un- 
doing.5 

The  notion  of  a  return  home  belongs  not  of  right  to 
the  drama  of  the  Sea  of  Death.  But  in  the  Odyssey  the 
story  has  been  rationalised  ;  and  as  it  now  stands  we  read 
that  Odysseus  sailed  for  nine  days,  and  was  within  one 
more  day's  journey  of  Ithaca.1  They  could  even  see  men 
lighting  fires  upon  the  land.  But  unhappily  upon 
Odysseus,  who  had  been  steering  the  ship  for  all  those 
nine  days,  *  sweet  sleep  on  a  sudden  fell;'  and,  as  he 
slept,  his  comrades,  deeming  he  bore  away  a  treasure  in 
his  bag,  undid  it,  and  all  the  storms  burst  on  them  at 

1  The  likeness  between  the  place  taken  in  this  story  respectively  by  the 
2Eolian  island  and  the  land  of  the  Phaeacians  is  conspicuous  in  this  fact, 
that  the  visit  to  each  heralds  a  sail  backwards  to  the  east — to  Ithaca,  in 
fact.  We  can  easily  understand  how,  when  various  short  myths  were  tacked 
together  to  form  one  long  story,, the  episode  of  the  journey  to  Ithaca  from 
JEolus'  island  was  made  to  take  a  quite  different  termination  from  that 
which  it  originally  had. 


310  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

once,  till  they  were  driven  back  to  the  island  from  which 
they  had  sailed.  And  we  need  not  wonder  that  -ZEolus 
refused  again  to  favour  such  ill-starred  beings. 

c  Away  !  off  from  our  island  quickly,  vilest  of  men  ! 
!N"ot  for  me  is  it  to  care  for  or  speed  on  his  way  the  man 
who  is  abhorred  of  the  blessed  gods.  Off !  for  thou 
comedst  here  a  hateful  one  to  the  gods.' 

For  six  days  and  nights  they  sailed  continually,  and  on 
the  seventh  came  to  Lamos'  lofty  city,  Lsestrygonia. 
This  was  only  another  land  of  giants.  Perhaps  this  inci- 
dent of  the  journey  and  the  story  of  the  Cyclops  are  two 
legends  which  have  been  woven  together.  The  descrip- 
tions are  slightly  varied ;  and  on  that  account  their  points 
of  likeness  are  the  more  instructive ;  for  they  must  have 
a  distinct  reason  and  intention.  It  is  generally  charac- 
teristic of  the  giant  to  live  in  the  earth ;  especially  so  if 
he  be  in  a  manner  a  representative  of  the  grave  itself. 
The  Cyclops  lives  in  a  cave.  But  the  Lsestrygones  are 
much  more  civilised :  they  have  cities  and  agorae. 

6  Behind  the  high  promontory  where  we  lay,'  says 
Odysseus,  continuing  his  narrative,  ( I  could  see  neither 
the  signs  of  cattle  nor  of  men ;  only  smoke  we  saw  issuing 
as  from  the  ground.  So  I  sent  forward  three  of  my  com- 
panions to  enquire  what  sort  of  men  they  were.  And  they 
went  along  the  smooth  road  whereby  waggons  carry  wood 
from  the  mountains  to  the  city,  and  they  met  before  the 
town  a  damsel  bearing  water,  the  strong  daughter  of 
Lsestrygonian  Aiitiphates.  Then  they  stood  by  and  spake 
to  her,  and  asked  her  who  was  the  king  of  these  people 
and  who  were  those  he  ruled.  And  she  straightway 
showed  to  them  her  father's  high-roofed  house.  When 
they  had  entered  the  illustrious  dwelling,  they  found  the 
mistress  there  lofty  as  a  mountain-top ;  and  they  were 
afeared.  And  she  called  at  once  her  husband,  famous 
Antiphates,  from  the  assembly.' 

There  is  much  less  of  the  true  jotun  nature  about  these 
giants.  They  have  houses  and  cities  and  assemblies.  I 


NIVERSIT- 


311 

think  it  probable  that  in  this  part  of  the  voyage  we  have 
more  to  do  with  legend  than  with  ni}Tth.  Granting  that 
the  myth  had  asserted  that  a  giant  race  lived  somewhere 
in  mid-sea,  this  special  account  of  the  giants  may  have 
been  taken  from  the  actual  experience  of  travellers.  The 
Lsestrygones  have,  however,  all  the  savageness  of  their 
brethren  the  Cyclopes.  Antiphates  at  once  seized  one  of 
the  comrades  to  prepare  his  supper;  the  other  two  ran 
back  to  the  ship.  And  the  giant  raised  a  clamour  through 
all  the  town.  The  strong  Lsestrygouians  came  flocking 
from  every  side  in  thousands  —  not  men,  but  giants  —  who 
hurled  at  them  with  stones  torn  from  the  rocks.  And  an 
evil  cry  arose  among  the  ships  as  the  Greeks  perished  and 
navies  sank.  .  .  '  At  length,  drawing  my  sword  from  my 
thigh,  I  severed  the  rope  of  the  blue-prowed  ship.  I 
called  on  my  comrades  and  bade  them  to  throw  themselves 
upon  the  oars,  that  we  might  escape  the  evil.  .  .  .' 

Here  for  a  moment  let  us  pause.  Far  more  important 
and  significant  than  any  of  the  previous  adventures  is  the 
next  which  befalls  the  seafarers  —  that  is  to  say,  their 
coming  to  the  home  of  Circe.  Circe  and  Calypso,  I  sup- 
pose, are  the  same  ;  and  each  is  very  Death  herself.  Images 
of  mortality  lie  scattered  throughout  the  history  of  the 
voyage  ;  but  in  these  two  only  do  we  see  the  true  personifi- 
cations of  the  dreadful  goddess.  After  the  visits  to  their 
homes  the  story  changes  somewhat.  The  latter  part  in 
either  case  presents  a  picture  of  the  destiny  of  the  soul 
—  one  future  after  the  habitation  with  Circe,  another 
future  after  the  habitation  with  Calypso  ;  from  .ZEsea  to 
Hades,  from  Calypso's  island,  Ogygia,  to  the  earthly 
Paradise. 

Circe  is  Death  first  presented  in  the  image  of  a  hawk 
or  wolf.  She  is  the  child,  as  it  seems,  of  the  night  sun,  as 
the  Egyptians  would  have  said  of  the  dead  Osiris;  in  the 
language  of  Grecian  fable,  she  is  the  daughter  of  Helios 
and  Perse  (the  destroyer),  Perse  herself  being  the  daughter 
of  Oceanos,  into  which  the  days  disappear.  The  name  of 


312  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

her  island  (it  is  also  another  name  for  Circe  herself),1 
-ZEa3a,  means  a  land  of  such  wailing  (alal)  as  men  utter 
by  a  grave.2  Circe's  palace  is  buried  deep  in  forest  gloom, 
and  over  dense  coppices  of  oak  and  underwood  its  smoke  is 
seen  ascending.  Around  the  enchantress  are  wild  beasts, 
mountain  wolves  and  lions,  which  she  herself  has  tamed. 
But  her  attendant  maidens  are  the  personifications  of  the 
simplest  nature  religion,  the  daughters  of  the  fountains 
and  the  groves  and  holy  rivers,  which  flow  into  the  sea ; 
for  she  belongs  to  an  old-world  order  of  things  ;  before  the 
gods  were  she  is.  She  is  fate;  and,  like  all  the  fates,  she 
weaves  a  thread,  the  thread  of  destiny.3  It  is  a  beautiful 
image  which  is  repeated  in  the  case  of  Calypso,  that  when 
this  goddess  of  death  is  first  discovered  to  us  she  is 
weaving  her  immortal  web  and  singing  over  it  with  a 
lovely  voice. 

When  the  comrades  of  Odysseus  have  come  to  her 
palace,  they  stand  without  the  gates,  shouting  aloud,  and 
she  comes  forth  and  opens  the  shining  doors  and  bids 
them  in.  They  do  not  keep  men  standing  at  that  door.4 

1  Her  son  is  JSanis,  her  brother  JSetes.     This  ^Eetes  is  a  kind  of  king 
of  death,  for  the  labours  of  Jason  and  the  Argonauts  may  be  compared  to 
the  labours  of  Heracles  in  the  other  world.     (Sec  ante,  Chap.  IV.)     It  is 
noticeable,  as  witnessing  to  the  likeness  between  Circe  and  Calypso,  that 
one  is  sister  of  6\o6<t>povTos  ^Eetes,  the  other  of  b\o6<ppovros  Atlas.     Atlas 
is  a  being  like  lapetus,  a  King  of  the  West,  a  King  of  Death. 

2  Cf.  what  was  said  above  concerning  Cocytus  and  Gjoll. 

3  I  doubt  if  the  metaphorical  notion  of  weaving  the  thread  of  destiny 
belongs  to  the  earliest  genesis  of  myth.     It  may  be  that  the  weaving  or 
sewing  goddess  (like  the  Frau  Holda  of  the  Germans)  is  originally  only  an 
earth  divinity ;  hence  a  mother  goddess,  and  so  a  patroness  of  all  house- 
wifery.    Athene  sometimes  appears  in  this  character.     The  earth  goddess, 
from  being  very  old  (uralt),  becomes  the  goddess  of  prophecy,  and  so  of 
fate  (see  Chaps.  II.  and  V.)   With  the  notion  of  fate,  again,  may  be  connected 
the  quite  physical  one  of  the  navel  chord  which  unites  the  new-born  child 
to  its  mother.     Man  might  be  supposed  in  the  same  way  united  by  an 
invisible  thread  to  the  mother  of  all,  to  the  Earth.     This  at  death  is  cut. 

4  See  the  fine  lines  of  Christina  Eossetti : — 

'  Shall  I  meet  other  wayfarers  by  night  ? 

Those  who  have  gone  before. 
Then  must  I  knock  or  call  when  first  in  sight? 
They  will  not  keep  you  standing  at  that  door.* 


313 

The  lower  road  is  not  a  hard  one.  Sed  revocare  gradus. 
.  .  .  She  s.eats  them  upon  thrones,  and  makes  ready  their 
supper  of  cheese,  and  meal,  and  honey,  and  Pramnian 
wine ;  but  with  the  food  she  mingles  the  fatal  narcotic 
drug  which  makes  them  forget  their  native  land.  And 
last  she  strikes  them  with  her  rod,  and  they  are  trans- 
formed into  swine.  '  They  had  the  heads  and  voices  and 
hair  and  bodies  of  swine,  but  their  understandings  were 
unshaken  as  before.'  That  turning  the  comrades  into 
swine  is,  however,  a  later  addition ;  the  original  Circe  had 
only  to  touch  them  with  her  wand — which  is  one  with  the 
sleepy  rod  of  Hermes ' — and  they  awoke  no  more. 

By  Odysseus,  and  through  the  council  of  Hermes, 
the  companions  are  freed  from  their  enchantment.  So 
at  least  the  story  stands  in  Homer.  But  how  freed? 
Whither  are  they  at  liberty  to  go?  To  the  house  of 
Hades,  that  is  all.  Odysseus  is  warned  by  Circe  herself 
that  he  must  go  thither,  and  in  the  dialogue  between  them 
we  are  once  again  taught  the  lesson  of  the  facilis  descensus 
Averno.  6  Who,'  exclaims  the  hero,  ( will  guide  me  on 
that  way  ?  None  has  yet  sailed  to  Hades'  gate.'  And  she 
answers,  '0  wise  Laertes'  son,  let  the  want  of  a  pilot 
on  thy  ship  be  cause  of  little  care  to  thee.  Eaise  but 
your  mast  and  let  your  white  sails  fly,  and  Boreas'  breath 
will  bring  you  there.'  Then  she  describes  the  unknown 
land.  '  And  when  at  length  thou  hast  crossed  the  stream 
of  Ocean,  where  is  the  shore,  and  where  are  the  groves  of 
Persephone,  of  towering  poplars  and  fruitless  willows, 
there  leave  thy  ship  by  Ocean's  depths,  and  go  thou  thy- 
self to  Hades'  drear  halls.  .  .  .' 

Then  they  went  down  to  the  sea,  and  awful  Circe  sent 
behind  them  a  kindly  breeze,  which  filled  their  sails.  And 
the  sails,  as  they  passed  over  the  sea,  were  full- stretched 

1  Him  thought  how  that  the  winged  god,  Mercury, 
Beforne  him  stood,  and  bad  him  to  be  mery. 
His  slepy  yerdc,  in  bond  he  bare  upright ; 
An  hat  he  wered  upon  his  heres  bright.  .  .  .     Knighfs  Tale. 


314  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

all  that  day.  Then  the  sun  set,  and  the  ways  were  over- 
shadowed. And  now  they  had  come  to  the  far  limit  of 
the  deep-flowing  Ocean,  to  the  home  in  which  live  the 
Cimmerians,  covered  with  darkness  and  mist.  Them  the 
sun  never  visits  when  at  morning  he  climbs  the  starry 
heaven,  or  when  he  returns  backwards  towards  the  earth ; 
but  hateful  night  broods  there.  There  they  drew  up  the 
ship ;  and  there  they  passed  through  the  groves  of  Perse- 
phone, with  the  towering  poplars  and  fruitless  willows,  to 
the  house  of  Hades.  There  Phlegethon  and  Cocytus, 
which  is  a  stream  of  Styx,  join  the  Acheron ;  and  where 
a  rock  marks  the  meeting  of  the  loud-sounding  rivers 1 
Odysseus  dug  a  trench  and  filled  it  with  the  blood  of 
sheep,  and  made  a  sacrifice  and  a  libation,  and  besought 
the  unsubstantial  dead  to  draw  near.2 

In  the  version  of  the  story  which  has  come  down  to 
us  no  valid  reason  is  given  for  the  journey  of  Odysseus  to 
Hades.  He  goes  there  only  to  invoke  the  shade  of  a 
prophet,  who  is  to  tell  what  further  adventures  lie  ahead 
for  him  and  his  comrades.  But  Circe  was  herself  a  pro- 
phetess. And,  besides,  the  best  of  auguries  would  have 
been  to  send  him  home ;  and  Circe,  who  could  give  him  a 
breeze  to  carry  him  to  the  west,  could,  one  would  have  sup- 
posed, have  given  him  one  which  would  have  borne  him  to 
Ithaca.  We  should  suppose  this,  I  mean,  if  we  looked 
upon  Odysseus  as  merely  a  common  adventurer,  and  the 
wonders  which  he  meets  with  as  only  the  wonders  inci- 
dental to  distant  travel.  But  when  we  strip  from  all  the 
story  its  later  dress,  and  see  it  in  its  original  intention,  we 
perceive  that  there  is  a  meaning  in  each  detail;  we  see 

1  Cf .  Gjoll. 

2  This  feeding  with  blood  the  unsubstantial  shades  (i.e.  images  of  the  dead 
such  as  are  seen  in  dreams),  in  order  that  they  may  obtain  something  like 
human  capabilities,  is  very  remarkable,  and  is  a  test  of  the  psychology  of 
the  time.     The  object  of  it  is  purely  material,  and  it  produces  immediate 
material  results :  each  one  who  has  drunk  of  the  blood  gains  a  voice  and 
also  understanding  (as  in  the  case  of  Anticleia).     The  object  is  not  senti- 
mental, as  that  of  a  sacrifice  is.    It  is  in  no  proper  sense  a  sacrifice  to  the 
dead  which  Odysseus  is  making. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HADES.  315 

too  how  many  points  have  been  retained  in  the  later  and 
rationalised  edition  of  the  legend,  when  their  full  signifi- 
cance is  forgotten.  Odysseus  is  not  a  common  traveller. 
He  is  either  the  soul  escaped  from  life,  or  else  he  is  the  one 
living  man  who  has  been  permitted  to  visit  the  halls  of 
the  dead,  to  sound  the  depths  and  shallows  of  the  Sea  of 
Death,  and  has  survived  to  tell  the  tale.  Odysseus'  going 
to  Hades  is  merely  the  legitimate  bourn  of  his  journey. 
Circe  can  waft  him  there,  but  she  cannot  send  him  back 
to  the  world.  The  importance,  therefore,  of  the  visit  to 
the  Eealm  of  Shades  does  not  lie  in  the  alleged  object  of 
Odysseus'  coming,  the  prophecy  which  he  hears  from  the 
mouth  of  the  seer  Teiresias,  but  in  the  whole  picture  of 
the  dark  land  which  he  bears  away  with  him. 

Now,  therefore,  we  behold  the  hero  in  the  outer  courts 
of  Hades'  city  :— 

'  Much  I  prayed  to  the  empty  figures  of  the  dead  for 
my  return,  vowing  them  a  young  heifer  the  best  I  had;  and 
to  Teiresias  I  promised  a  coal  black  sheep,  excelling  all 
the  flock.  And  when  I  had  called  upon  the  nations  of  the 
dead,  I  cut  the  throats  of  the  sheep  over  the  ditch,  and  the 
black  blood  flowed  out. 

'  And  the  souls  of  the  dead  came  flocking  forth  from 
Erebus — brides  and  unmarried  youths,  and  much-enduring 
old  men,  and  tender  girls,  new-sorrowing  souls,  and  men 
with  many  wounds,  slain  in  battle  and  bearing  their 
bloody  arras ;  all  these,  with  an  immense  clamour,  were 
wandering  round  the  ditch.  Then  pale  fear  seized  me.  .  .  . 

6  First  came  the  soul  of  Elpenor,  my  comrade  ;  he  was 
yet  unburied  1  beneath  the  broad  earth,  for  we  had  left  his 
corse  in  Circe's  house,  unwept,  unburied,  for  another  task 
was  ours.  .  .  .' 


1  Or  unburned,  Ou  .  .  eTeflaTrro.  According  to  Grimm  (IJeber  das 
Verbrennen  der  Leicheri)  Q&irreiv  means  etymologically  to  '  burn.'  It  was 
used  for  any  funeral  rites.  As  we  see  by  a  later  passage  (v.  74)  it  was 
rather  burning  than  burying  that  Elpenor  wished  for.  Grimm's  etymology 
for  Banreiv  has  been  disputed. 


316  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

'Elpenor,'  cried  Odysseus,  'how  is  it  that  to  this 
murky  darkness  thou  art  come  sooner  on  foot  than  I,  who 
sailed  in  my  black  ship?'  Then  Elpenor  gave  an 
account  of  how  he  died,  and  asked  for  his  funeral  rites  to 
be  duly  performed  on  Odysseus'  return  to  .ZEsea.  .  .  . 
All  the  while  Odysseus  kept  guard  over  the  blood.  His 
mother,  Anticleia,  '  daughter  of  the  noble-minded  Au- 
tolycus,'  passed  by ;  but  her  he  would  not  suffer  to  drink 
at  first.  '  At  length  the  form  of  Theban  Teiresias  came  by, 
grasping  a  golden  sceptre;  and  it  knew  me  and  spake. 
"  Why,  unhappy  one,  hast  thou  left  the  sun's  light,  and 
come  hither  to  see  the  shades  and  their  drear  abode? 
Go  back  from  the  ditch ;  put  up  your  bright  sword,  and 
let  me  drink  of  the  blood;  then  will  I  prophesy  unto 
thee."  .  .  .' 

How  dim  this  region  is ;  how  shadowy  and  unsubstan- 
tial the  figures  which  haunt  it.  It  is  like  to  that  outer 
circle  of  Dante's  hell  where  the  shades  move  for  ever  aim- 
lessly and  in  a  '  blind  life  devoid  of  hope.'  There  is  no 
speculation  in  their  eyes.  Anticleia,  Odysseus'  mother, 
sits  all  the  while  silent  by  the  trench  of  blood  with  looks 
askance  ;  she  dare  not  look  straight  at  her  son  nor  recog- 
nise him.  Teiresias  alone  is  possessed  of  his  heart  and 
mind  as'  on  earth,  for  he  had  been  a  prophet  and  was 
wiser  than  common  men. 

6  Tell  me,  0  king,'  Odysseus,  speaking  of  his  mother, 
says  to  him,  '  how  can  she  know  me  for  what  I  am  ? ' 

And  Teiresias  answers — 

6  Whomsoever  among  the  departed  dead  you  suffer  to 
come  to  the  blood,  he  will  speak  sensibly  to  you.  But  if 
you  disallow  it,  silent  will  he  wander  back.' 

'  So  spake  he,  and  the  soul  of  King  Teiresias  turned 
back  to  Hades'  house.  And  I  remained  steadfast  until  my 
mother  came  forward  and  drank  the  black  blood.  At  once 
she  knew  me,  and  wailing  spake  with  winged  words.  .  .  .' 
They  conversed  for  awhile,  and  now  follows  a  wonderful 
touch,  showing  the  nature  of  these  shades  of  the  departed. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HAD&3.  317 

'I  wished,'  Odysseus  goes  on  in  his  account  of  the  scene, 
( I  wished  to  take  hold  of  my  mother's  spirit.  Thrice 
my  thoughts  urged  me  to  embrace  her ;  but  thrice  from 
my  arms  like  a  shadow,  or  even  a  dream,  she  flew  away. 
And  sharper  grief  arose  in  my  heart ;  and  to  compel  her 
I  spake  with  winged  words.  "Mother  !  why  stay  you  not 
for  me  to  lay  hold  on  you?  So  might  we  two,  folded  in 
each  other's  arms,  have  joy  mid  our  sorrow  even  in  Hades. 
Has  Persephone  deluded  me  with  a  shadow  only,  that  I 
might  grieve  the  more  ?  " 

6  So  I  said,  and  my  honoured  mother  straight  answered. 

c "  Ah,  woe,  my  son  !  Persephone  has  not  deceived  you ; 
this  is  but  the  state  of  mortals  when  they  are  dead.  They 
have  no  more  flesh,  nor  bones,  nor  sinews  ; !  for  the  strong 
force  of  fire  consumed  these  when  first  the  spirit  left  the 
whitened  bones.  Then  the  soul  itself  flits  aimlessly  away 
like  a  dream." 

This  condition  of  the  dead  is  exemplified  in  the  case 
of  all  the  others  whom  Odysseus  in  turn  encounters. 
Agamemnon  knows  him  not  till  he  has  drunk  of  the  black 
blood.  Achilles  would  change  his  life  below  for  that  of  a 
mean  hired  labourer,  but  yet  he  can  feel  delight  at  hear- 
ing of  the  fame  of  his  son,  and  after  the  dialogue  with 
Odysseus  he  passes  on  making  great  joyful  strides  through 
the  asphodel  meadows.  In  some  of  the  inner  courts  of 
Pluto's  palace  the  punishments  of  the  dead  are  positive. 
There  Odysseus  sees  Minos  the  judge;  there  is  Tityus 
stretched  on  the  rocks  while  the  vultures  are  dipping  their 
beaks  in  his  liver;  there  Tantalus  stands  in  the  water 
which  flees  from  his  touch  ;  there  too  is  the  shade  of 
Orion  perpetually  hunting  through  the  meadows ;  and  the 
shade  of  Heracles  (Heracles  himself  being  on  Olympus2), 
which  moves  darkly,  seeming  ever  ready  to  let  fly  a  shaft. 

1  Lit.  '  Their  sinews  no  longer  hold  the  flesh  and  bones,'  i.e.  they  no 
longer  have  sinews  holding  the  flesh  and  bones. 

8  See  what  is  said  in  Chap.  IV.  concerning  the  double  nature  of 
Heracles,  (1)  as  a  mortal  and  (2)  as  a  god. 


318  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

We  have  lingered  somewhat  over  this  picture  of  the 
realm  of  Hades,  the  first  vivid  presentation  of  the  under 
world  which  meets  us  in  the  literature  of  the  Aryan  race. 
And  the  beauty  and  solemnity  of  the  picture  may  well 
excuse  this  pause  ;  for  it  is  a  beauty  and  a  power  which 
familiarity  can  scarcely  lessen.  We  now  retrace  our  steps, 
and  return  with  Odysseus  once  more  to  the  portal  of 
Death,  where  he  stood  when  he  entered  Circe's  island. 
But  in  this  case  Death  is  represented  not  by  Circe,  but  by 
Calypso. 

First  of  all  in  the  actual  course  of  the  poem  we  find 
the  hero  upon  the  island  of  Calypso,  called  Ogygia. 
Etymologists  connect  the  word  Ogygia  with  Oceanus,  and 
this  connection  shows  us  that  the  name  was  not  originally 
the  name  of  an*  island  so  much  as  the  general  one  of  the 
sea.1  Ogygia  means,  moreover,  something  primeval,  so 
that  it  is  also  the  name  of  Egypt,  the  oldest  land  of  the 
world,  and  Ogyges  is  the  name  of  the  earliest  Attic  king  ; 
in  this  sense  Osysria  is  likewise  chosen  to  be  the  home  of 

&«/  & 

Time,  Kronos.  On  this  island  Odysseus  sleeps  perforce 
beside  Calypso  in  her  hollow  cave  ;  and  hither,  when  he 
has  been  seven  years  in  the  embrace  of  the  dreadful 
goddess,  Hermes  comes,  by  command  of  Zeus,  to  set  him 
free. 

It  was,  we  remember,  by  the  advice  of  the  same 
messenger  that  Odysseus  overcame  the  spells  of  Circe. 
Hermes  in  later  times,  partaking  of  the  nature  of  Apollo 
and  advancing  as  Greek  civilisation  advanced,  became  the 
god  of  merchandise  and  of  the  market  as  well  as  the 
patron  of  agonistic  contests.  But  in  Homer  he  has  his 
primitive  character  ;  he  is  the  god  of  the  wind.  His  name 
is  connected  with  those  Yedic  Sarameyas  of  whom  we 
have  lately  spoken  ;  it  is  also  connected  with  the  Greek 
opfjudo),  to  rush.  We  have  seen  why  the  Sarameyas,  as 
winds,  were  the  psychopomps  or  leaders  of  the  soul  over 


was  connected  with  the  fabulous  primeval  deluges  in  Bceotia 
and  in  Attica. 


CALYPSO.  319 

the  Bridge  of  Souls ;  and  how  they  might  also  be  the 
representatives  of  the  morning  and  evening  breezes.  All 
these  functions  are  united  in  the  Greek  messenger  god. 
His  rod  has  a  twofold  power :  it  closes  the  eyes  of  men  in 
sleep  and  awakens  them  from  sleeping.  Or  in  a  wider 
sense  it  either  calls  men  from  the  sleep  of  death  or  drives 
them  to  the  under  world.  Hermes  is  (like  the  Sarameyas} 
most  present  when  we  are  near  the  other  world.  This  last 
reason,  perhaps,  explains  why  he  is  the  messenger  of  the 
Odyssey  but  not  of  the  Iliad.1 

As  the  wind  of  morning,  the  awakeiier,  Hermes  comes 
now  over  the  sea  to  rouse  Odysseus  from  his  fatal  slumber  ; 
he  comes,  in  the  beautiful  language  of  the  poet,  like  a  gull 
fishing  over  the  wide  brine,  now  (so  we  fancy  him)  dipping 
down  to  the  wave,  now  rising  again. 

Windlike  beneath,  the  immortal  golden  sandals 
Bare  up  his  flight  o'er  the  limitless  earth  and  the  sea ; 
And  in  his  hand  that  magic  ^Cvand  he  carried 
Wherewith  the  eyes  of  men  he  closes  in  slumber 
Or  wakens  from  sleeping. 

The  divine  messenger  finds  Calypso  within  her  cave,  at 
the  mouth  of  which  burns  a  fire  (we  often  meet  with  this 
fire  at  the  entrance  to  the  house  of  death),2  a  fire  of  cedar 
and  frankincense,  which  wafts  its  scent  over  the  island. 
She  is  singing,  and  as  she  sings  she  moves  over  the  web  a 
golden  shuttle,  and  in  the  wood  behind  the  birds  are 
brooding. 

Then  Calypso,  seeing  that  the  commands  of  Zeus  might 
not  be  disobeyed,  instructed  Odysseus  how  to  make  a  raft, 
and  sped  him  on  his  way.  For  seventeen  days  he  sailed 

1  Hermes  is  always  the  messenger  of  the  gods  in  the  Odyssey  ;  but  in 
the  Iliad  this  part  is  played  by  Iris,  the  rainbow.     There  is  a  natural  con- 
nection between  the  rainbow,  the  Bridge  of  Souls  (in  the  Vedas,  &c.),  and 
the  wind    (Sarameyas,   Hermes),  who  is  the  leader  of    souls.      In  the 
Odyssey  (xviii.  beg.)   we  hear    of   an   Irus,  who   may  be   the   same   as 
Hermes. 

2  Chaps.  VII.  VIII. 


320  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

upon  that  raft  over  the  trackless  sea,  and  sleepless  watched 
the  constellations  as  they  passed  overhead,  '  the  Pleiads, 
and  late-setting  Bootes,  and  the  Bear,  which  they  also 
call  the  Wain.' l  He  was  not  fated  yet  to  find  his  home. 
On  the  eighteenth  day,  as  the  shadowy  mountains  of  the 
Phseacians  began  to  appear,  Poseidon,  who  still  burned  to 
revenge  the  death  of  his  son  Polyphemus,  raised  a  storm, 
so  that  the  raft  was  borne  upon  a  rock  and  Odysseus  was 
all  but  destroyed.  But  a  sea  goddess,  Ino  Leucothea, 
gave  him  her  veil  to  buoy  him  up  when  he  left  the  sink- 
ing raft,  and  Athene  stilled  the  waves.  The  appearance 
of  Ino  in  this  scene  is  appropriate.  For  we  are  now  close 
to  the  Land  of  the  Blessed,  and  she  herself  was  once  a 
mortal  who  found  a  home  in  this  heaven.2 

At  length  Odysseus,  swimming,  gained  the  shore.  Be- 
fore he  reached  this,  his  last  haven,  the  troubles  of 
Odysseus  had  attained  their  climax.  He  had  lost  all  his 
comrades,  his  ships,  his  treasures,  and  now  this  last  refuge, 
the  raft,  brake  beneath  his  feet.  Nadus  egressus,  sic  redibo, 
'All  come  into  this  world  alone;  all  leave  it  alone.' 
Welcome,  therefore  (we  may  well  believe),  as  is  the  father's 
life  to  his  children  when  he  has  lain  long  in  suffering  and 
disease,  and  the  Hateful  Goddess  has  grazed  close  by  him, 
such  to  the  wanderer  was  the  sight  of  this  new  land. 

The  name  of  the  land  on  which  he  was  cast  was 
Scheria.  The  island  of  Ogygia  means  literally  the  ocean ; 
this  land  with  the  same  etymological  exactness  signifies 
the  shore — -2%2/na,  from  o-^spds.3  The  contrast  of  mean- 

1  We  think  of  Dante's  Ulysses. 

'  Tutte  le  stelle  gia  dell'  altro  polo 
Vedea  la  notte,  e  il  nostro  tanto  basso 
Che  non  suggeva  fuor  del  marin  suolo.' 

2  See  Pindar,  01.  2. 

3  It  is  in  keeping  with  the  principles  of  mythopoesis  that  Calypso's  land 
embodying  the  notion  of  the  Sea  of  Death,  should  be  in  the  midst  of  the 
sea — that  is  to  say,  should  be  an  island.     Scheria  means  shore.     There  is 
nothing  said  of  its  being  an  island.     Nevertheless  the  Greek  paradise  was 
generally  thought  to  be  one,  e.g.  the  Islands  of  the  Blessed  of  Pindar,  &c. 


THE  PH.EACIANS.  321 

ing  takes  us  back  to  a  time  when  the  mytji  of  the  great 
traveller  was  more  simple  than  we  find  it  in  Homer,  and 
told  only  of  his  passing  over  the  Sea  of  Death  and  arriving 
at  the  coast  beyond.  This  shore  is  the  home  of  the  god- 
like Phseacians,  and  the  king  of  it  is  Alcinoiis.  In  the 
description  of  the  people  and  of  their  country  we  easily 
recognise  a  place  such  as  is  not  in  this  world,  and  a  race 
not  of  mortal  birth.  Far  away,  says  Alcinoiis — 

Far  away  do  we  live,  at  the  end  of  the  watery  plain, 

Nor  before  now  have  ever  had  dealings  with  other  mortals ; 

But  now  there  comes  this  luckless  wanderer  hither. 

Him  it  is  right  that  we  help,  for  all  men  fellows  and  strangers 

Come  from  Zens ;  in  his  sight  the  smallest  gift  is  pleasing.1 

This  place  is  the  due  antithesis  of  Hades.  Like  Hades 
it  lies  at  the  extreme  limit  of  the  watery  plain.  But  it  is 
a  land  of  everlasting  sunlight  and  happiness,  instead  of 
one  of  darkness  and  death.  Remote  from,  men,  near  to  the 
gods  (dy%i0£oi),  as  Zeus  himself  declares,2  the  Phseacians 
live,  like  the  blameless  ^Ethiopians,  somewhere  on  the 
confines  of  earth.  Hither  it  was  that  yellow-haired 
Ehadamanthus  fled  when  persecuted  and  driven  from 
Crete  by  his  brother  Minos — the  just  Rhadamanthus, 
who,  by  some  legends,  is  placed  as  ruler  in  the  land  of 
the  blessed.  Hither  was  come  the  fainting  Odysseus. 

How  the  wanderer  hid  himself  at  the  river  mouth,  and, 
having  fallen  asleep,  was  awakened  by  Nausicaa,  the  king's 
daughter,  when  at  play  with  her  maidens,  and  how  he  dis- 
covered himself  to  her,  needs  not  to  be  retold.  When 
Odysseus  had  related  his  adventures  to  Nausicaii,  she  bade 
him  follow  her  to  her  father's  house.  This  was  a  para- 
disiacal palace,  much  like  those  which  occur  so  often  in 
our  Teutonic  fairy  tales.  It  is  made  as  beautiful  as  the 
Greek  imagination  of  that  time  could  paint  it.3  Built  all 

1  Od.  vi.  204  sqq.  2-Od.  v.  35. 

1  Mr.  Pater,  in  his  article  on  the  '  Beginnings  of  Greek  Art '  {Fortnightly 
Review),  has  admirably  followed  out  the  exact  artistic  conceptions  which 
are  implied  in  the  descriptions  by  Homer  of  the  palace  of  Alcinoiis. 

T 


322  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  bronze,  it  had  golden  doors  and  silver  pillars,  and  silver 
lintels  with  a  golden  ring.  On  either  side  the  entrance 
were  gold  and  silver  dogs,  f  which  cunning-minded  He- 
phsestus  made  to  guard  the  house ;  they  were  immortal, 
and  free  from  old  age  for  ever.'  We  recognise  in  these 
descriptions  the  dawn  of  the  Hellenic  love  of  art.  But 
the  two  dogs  have,  I  fancy,  a  special  meaning.  I  see  in 
them  the  descendants  of  the  Sarameyas,  or  whatever  in 
early  Aryan  belief  preceded  those  guardians  of  the  house 
of  death,  who  are  own  brothers  to  the  two  dogs  of  the 
Wild  Huntsman,  Hackelberg.  The  garden  which  sur- 
rounds the  palace  of  Alcinoiis  distinctly  presents  the  pic- 
ture of  a  home  of  the  blessed;  it  is  just  like  the  Gardens 
of  the  Hesperides,  and  like  all  the  pictures  which  before 
and  after  have  been  drawn  of  an  earthly  paradise.  Here 
the  trees  and  flowers  do  not  grow  old  and  disappear, 
winter  does  not  succeed  to  summer,  but  all  is  one  con- 
tinued round  of  blossoming  and  bearing  fruit ;  in  one  part 
of  the  garden  the  trees  are  all  abloom,  in  another  they  are 
heavy  with  ripe  clusters.1 

Nevertheless  the  Western  Land,  though  a  place  of 
Paradise,  is  also  the  land  of  sunset ;  and  by  their  name 
the  Phseacians  appear  as  beings  of  the  twilight — (f>alaj; 
strengthened  from  fyaibs,  dusky,  dim.  Their  most  won- 
drous possessions  are  their  ships,  which  know  the  minds 
of  men  and  sail  swifter  than  a  bird  or  than  thought.  ( No 
pilots  have  they,  no  rudders,  no  oarsmen,  which  other 
ships  have,  for  they  themselves  know  the  thoughts  and 
minds  of  men.  The  rich  fields  they  know,  and  the  cities 
among  all  men,  and  swiftly  pass  over  the  crests  of  the  sea 

1  Compare  Pindar's  description  of  the  Happy  Isle  : — 

*  Where  round  the  Island  of  the  Blessed 
Soft  sea- winds  blow  continually  ; 
Where  golden  .flowers  on  sward  and  tree 
Blossom,  and  on  the  water  rest — 

There  move  the  saints  in  garlands  dressed 
And  intertwined  wreaths  of  colours  heavenly.' 


ODYSSEUS'  RETURN.  323 

shrouded  in  mist  and  gloom.9 1  Yet  the  Phpeacians  them- 
selves live  remote  from  human  habitation,  unused  to 
strangers.2  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  ships  travel 
alone  on  their  dark  voyages.  For  what  purpose?  It  is 
not  difficult  to  guess.  Their  part  is  to  carry  the  souls  of 
dead  men  over  to  the  Land  of  Paradise. 

We  can  imagine  these  ships  of  the  Phseacians  sailing 
into  every  human  sea,  calling  at  every  port,  familiar  with 
every  city,  though  in  their  shroud  of  darkness  they  are 
unseen  by  men.  .  They  know  all  the  rich  lands ;  for  every 
land  has  its  tribute  to  pay  to  the  ships  of  Death.  They 
are  the  counterparts  of  the  c  grim  ferryman  which  poets 
write  of ;' 3  only  that  the  last  plies  his  business  in  the  an- 
cient underground  Hades,  and  that  the  Phseacian  barks 
have  their  harbours  on  the  upper  earth ;  albeit  they  can 
pass  from  this  life  to  the  other.4 

Their  business  with  Odysseus  is  to  bring  him  back  to 
the  common  world — to  beloved  Ithaca.  He  has  passed 
to  the  cave  of  Hel  and  through  the  gates  of  Death; 
he  has  emerged  to  visit  the  Land  of  Paradise.  Now  he 
returns  that  his  adventures  may  be  sung  in  the  homes  of 
Greece. 

What  reports 
Yield  those  jealous  courts  unseen  ? 

How  could  men  ever  tell  tales  of  that  strange  country  if 
it  really  were  a  bourn  from  which  no  traveller  returned  ?  So 
when  the  hero  has  told  all  his  tale  in  the  hall  of  Alcinoiis, 
the  latter  orders  the  sailors  to  prepare  his  homeward 
voyage. 

1  Od.  viii.  562.  2  See  ante,  p.  321. 

3  Charon  is  not  known  to  Homer.     It  is  not  impossible  that  he  may  have 
been  imported  from  Egypt.     These  Phseacian  ferrymen  are  of  true  Aryan 
birth,  and  have  a  native  place  in  Greek  belief. 

4  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  no  ground  for  endorsing  "Welcker's  theory 
(RJieinisch.es  Museum  fur  Phllologie,  N.S.  vol.  i.)  that  the  Phaeacians  were 
imported  from  a  Teutonic  home.     That  the  Teutons  had  a  parallel  belief 
concerning  the  soul's  voyage  is  true  enough  (Ch.  VIII.)  ;  but  in  this  chapter 
it  has,  I  think,  been  made  clear  that  the  notion  was  an  universal  Aryan  one. 

Y  2 


324:  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Here  intervenes  Odysseus'  narrative  of  previous  travel 
—before  he  had  ever  conie  to  Calypso's  cave — whence  we 
have  already  drawn  some  pictures  of  the  soul's  journey; 
and  for  the  continuance  of  the  action  we  have  to  pass 
from  the  seventh  book  of  the  Odyssey  to  the  thirteenth. 
And  now  the  long  and  multiform  sea  adventures  come 
to  an  end.  'O  Odysseus,'  says  Alcinoiis,  'since  now 
thou  art  come  to  my  bronze-built,  high-roofed  house,  I 
deem  that  thou  wilt  return  home,  not  wandering  hither- 
ward  again.  Now  thou  hast  suffered  many  things.'  And 
Odysseus  rises,  and  takes  leave  of  Queen  Arete  with  these 
words :  c  Farewell,  O  queen,  for  ever ;  till  old  age  come, 
and  death,  which  are  the  lot  of  men.  Now  I  go;  but 
mayst  thou  have  joy  here  in  thy  children  and  in  thy 
people,  and  in  King  Alcinoiis.' 

So  saying  the  godlike  Odysseus  crossed  the  threshold, 
and  with  him  Alcinoiis  sent  a  herald,  to  lead  him  to  the 
swift  ship  and  to  the  sea- shore.  And  Arete  sent  women 
servants  with  him  to  bear,  one  a  clean  robe  and  a  tunic, 
another  a  heavy  chest ;  and  a  third  bare  bread  and  wine. 
They  came  to  the  ship  and  to  the  sea ;  and  his  renowned 
guides  received  the  things  and  stowed  them  in  the  hollow 
ship.  And  they  made  ready  for  Odysseus  linen  and  a 
blanket,  that  he  might  sleep  there  at  the  stern,  without 
v/aking.  Then  he  embarked,  and  silently  lay  down ;  and 
they  sat  each  one  upon  his  bench ;  and  they  heaved  the 
cable,  loosened  from  the  bored  stone.  Then  leaning  back, 
they  threw  up  the  sea  with  the  oar ;  and  as  Odysseus  lay, 
anon  deep  sleep  weighed  down  his  eyelids — a  sweet,  un- 
wakeful  sleep,  most  like  to  death.  .  .  .  Then  as  arose  the 
one  bright  star,  the  messenger  of  dawn,  the  ship  touched 
the  shore  of  Ithaca. 

Mythology  cannot  show,  out  of  all  the  imagery  which 
has  grown  up  around  the  Sea  of  Death,  a  finer  picture 
than  this  one  of  the  wanderer  who  has  been  dead  and  is 
alive  again — awakening,  along  with  the  day-heralding 
star,  to  find  himself  once  more  in  the  world  of  living  men. 


THE  BELIEFS  OF  HEATHEN  GERMANY.  325 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    BELIEFS    OF   HEATHEN    GERMANY. 

§  1.  The  Gods  of  the  MarJc. 

WE  have  scattered  notices  of  Gerin.an  heathenism  extend- 
ing over  many  centuries.  There  are  the  few  facts  which 
Tacitus  collected,  a  passage  here  and  there  in  other  classic 
authors,  then  the  later  histories  of  the  Teutonic  peoples 
themselves — Procopius,  Jornandes,  Paulus  Diaconus,  Gre- 
gory of  Tours,  and  lesser  chroniclers — which  shed  some 
light  upon  the  Germans'  early  belief ;  the  '  Danish  History' 
of  Saxo,  full  of  legendary  history,  which  is  but  transformed 
myth;  the  'Historia  Ecclesiastica '  of  Adam  of  Bremen  and 
such  like  works  of  men,  Christians  themselves,  but  yet  in 
close  proximity  with  the  heathen  ;  and  finally  we  have  the 
Eddas,  the  last  voice  of  Teutonic  paganism,  rising  up  from 
the  land  which  was  the  latest  to  give  admittance  to  the 
creed  of  Christendom.  These  are  as  recent  as  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries.  They  have  been,  it  is  probable, 
handed  down  for  many  hundred  years,  but  they  speak 
directly  only  of  the  heathenism  of  the  Norsemen.  Despite 
all  the  diversities  of  time  and  place  which  these  different 
sources  imply,  we  can  see  that  the  belief  is  in  essentials 
the  belief  of  one  people ;  a  race  whose  life  through  all  the 
centuries  had  little  changed,  which  was  united  not  by 
language  alone,  but  was  one  in  its  institutions,  in  its 
civilisation,  and  in  its  barbarism,  one  even  in  the  climatic 
influences  to  which  it  was  subjected. 

And    this    last   is   a   great    matter.      The   foregoing 
chapters  must  have  made  it  plain  that  the  creed  of  a 


326  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

people  is  always  greatly  dependent  upon  their  position  on 
this  earth,  upon  the  scenery  amid  which  their  life  is 
passed  and  the  natural  phenomena  to  which  they  have 
become  habituated ;  that  the  religion  of  men  who  live  in 
woods  will  not  be  the  same  as  that  of  the  dwellers  in  wide, 
open  plains ;  nor  the  creed  of  those  who  live  under  an 
inclement  sky,  the  sport  of  storms  and  floods,  the  same  as- 
the  religion  of  men  who  pass  their  lives  in  sunshine  and 
calm  air. 

The  more  sombre  aspects  of  nature  were  revealed  to 
the  German  races  from  the  Danube  to  the  Baltic.  Tacitus 
has  left  us  a  picture  of  the  Germans  he  knew,  the  dwellers 
in  Central  Europe,  and  of  the  land  they  inhabited.  He 
describes  their  dark,  lonely  life  under  the  perpetual  gloom 
of  trees,  and  their  country  '  rugged  with  wood  or  dank 
with  marsh.' l  The  Norsemen  had  their  homes  amid 
mighty  pine  forests  and  on  rocky  heights  looking  over  the 
main — not  such  a  sea  as  the  ^gsean,  but  the  sea  of  those 
Northern  regions,  icy  and  threatening,  not  often  tranquil. 
Inland  and  sea-shore  had  their  own  beauties,  but  they 
were  of  a  wild  kind.  The  Eddas  tell  us  of  the  marriage 
between  a  god  of  the  sea  and  a  daughter  of  the  hills ; 
each  utters  a  complaint  of  the  other's  home.  e  Of  moun- 
tains I  weary,'  says  one—2 

Of  mountains  I  weary. 
Not  long  was  I  there — 
Nine  nights  only — 
But  the  howl  of  the  wolf 
To  my  ears  sounded  ill 
By  the  song  of  the  sea  bird.3 

And  the  hill  goddess  answers — 

1  Tac.  Germ.  5.    And  again,  '  asperam  coelo,  tristem  cultu  aspectuque 
(c.  2). 

2  Edda  Snorra,  Gylfaginning,  D.  23. 

3  Lit.  swan  (svanr).     Swan  in  Norse  poetry  seems  constantly  to  be  used 
for  a  sea  bird.     Etymologically  of  course  it  would  be  merely  a  bird  that 
could  swim.     See  also  p.  341. 


THE  VILLAGE  AND  THE  NARK.          327 

I  conld  not  sleep 

In  my  bed  by  the  shore  ; 

For  the  scream  of  the  wild  birds, 

The  seamewF,  who  came 

From  the  wood  flying, 

Awoke  me  each  morning. 

But  the  child  of  this  union  between  the  mountain  and 
the  sea  was  the  religion  and  the  poetry  of  the  Teutonic 
race ;  beside  the  howl  of  the  wolf  and  the  scream  of  the 
seamew  it  struggled  into  life. 

As  for  the  social  condition  of  the  Germans  when  first 
described  to  us,  to  credit  the  accounts  of  classic  authors, 
the  people  seems  to  have  been  scarcely  raised  above  the 
earliest  stage  of  society,  the  hunting  state.  They  sowed 
but  little ;  when  they  were  not  engaged  in  war  or  in  the 
chase,  the  men  sat  idle ; !  usefuller  occupations  were 
abandoned  to  the  unwarlike  classes — to  old  men,  to 
women,  and  to  slaves.  The  Germans  made  very  little 
practice  of  agriculture,  says  Csesar,  or  (in  some  places) 
they  did  not  use  it  at  all.2  They  '  lived  chiefly  on  meat,' 
&c.3  Tacitus  says  that  the  men  in  time  of  peace  sat  idle, 
and  gave  over  household  management  to  the  women 
and  to  the  infirm  and  old.4  And  from  these  descriptions 
we  learn  how  far  apart  had  drifted  the  lives  of  the  various 
peoples  of  the  Aryan  race,  who  }ret,  when  they  separated 
to  begin  their  migrations,  started  from  the  same  point  on 
the  road  to  civilisation.  The  earliest  recollections  of 
Rome  and  Greece  pointed  back  to  a  time  when  men  sub- 
sisted altogether  by  the  labours  of  agriculture,  ere  com- 
merce with  its  attendant  refinements  and  luxuries  had 
been  introduced.  In  Rome  the  praisers  of  past  days  re- 

1  Nor  were  they  much  engaged  even  in  the  chase,  according  to  Tacitus 
(Germ.  15). 

2  '  Minime  omnes  Germani  agriculture  student.' — Cassar,  B.  G.  vi.  29  ; 
« Agricultural  non  student,'  22. 

8  'Neque  multum  frumento  sed  raaximam  partem  lacte  atque  pecore 
vivunt  ( Sue  vi).'— Caesar,  B.  G.  iv.  1. 
4  Germ.  16. 


328  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

called  the  glories  of  the  Republic  when  a  Cincinnatus  had 
to  be  dragged  from  the  plough  to  become  a  leader  of 
armies.  Yet  even  those  pictures  were  partly  imaginary, 
for,  as  more  recent  historians  have  pointed  out,  Rome  even 
in  prehistoric  days  must  have  been  possessed  of  an  import- 
ant commerce.1  By  the  Greeks  in  the  time  of  Homer  the 
transition  from  a  merely  agricultural  life  to  one  which 
knew  commerce  and  art  had  already  been  made.  Yet 
hundreds  of  years  after  Homer  or  the  early  days  of  Rome 
the  Teutons  and  the  Celts  had  not  fully  accustomed  them- 
selves to  the  condition  of  a  settled  agricultural  people  ; 
and  they  preserved  in  an  almost  unchanged  form  some  of 
the  institutions  which  characterised  the  life  of  the  old 
Aryas. 

It  has  been  already  hinted  that  before  the  separation 
of  the  nations  the  proto- Aryas  had  acquired  a  kind  of 
embryo  states,  miniature  republics  which  afterwards 
expanded  into  the  states  of  Rome  and  Greece,  of  Germany 
and  France  and  England.  The  germ  of  the  civitas  and  of 
the  TToXts  is  to  be  sought  in  the  village  community  of  the 
Aryas,  of  which  the  representatives  still  existing  are, 
first,  the  village  communities  of  India,  and,  at  a  farther 
distance,  the  Russian  mirs.  The  same  institution  dictated 
the  form  of  early  German  life  with  the  division  and  the 
disposal  of  property  among  the  Teutonic  races ;  in  a  large 
measure  it  lay  at  the  foundation  of  feudalism  and  the 
statecraft  of  mediseval  Europe. 

The  village  community  consisted  of  a  group  of  families 
in  the  possession  of  a  certain  space  of  land ;  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  property  was  based  upon  the  division  of  this  land 
into  three  parts.  First  there  was  a  tract  immediately 
around  each  house,  and  belonging  to  it ;  there  was  another 
portion  of  land  set  apart  specially  for  agricultural  purposes ; 

1  See  the  fourth  chapter  of  Mommsen's  Rom.  Gesck.,  wherein  the  historian 
shows  that  Home  must,  even  in  prehistoric  days,  have  been  an  emporium 
for  the  productions  of  central  Italy,  and  probably  possessed  a  mercantile 
navy.  This  was  very  likely  afterwards  destroyed  by  the  growing  power 
on  the  sea  of  the  Etruscans  (Tyrrheni). 


THE  VILLAGE  AND  THE  MARK.  329 

and  lastly,  there  was  the  surrounding  open  country,  which 
was  used  for  grazing.  No  one  of  any  of  these  three  divi- 
sions was  possessed  as  an  absolutely  personal  property,  but 
over  some  parts  the  rights  of  individuals,  over  other  parts 
the  rights  of  the  state,  were  paramount.  The  latter  was 
the  case  with  the  agricultural  portion ;  whereas  the  land 
immediately  surrounding  the  homestead  belonged  to  the 
household  there.1 

Of  such  a  kind  as  this  village  must  have  been  the  vicus 
of  which  Tacitus  speaks  in  describing  the  Germans.  But 
though  these  people  were  thus  joined  together  in  a  common 
society,  it  does  not  appear  that  even  then  they  lived  near 
one  another.  '  It  is  well  known,'  says  our  authority, 
6  that  the  Germans  do  not  inhabit  towns.  They  do  not 
even  suffer  their  dwellings  to  stand  near  together;  but 
live  apart  and  scattered,  each  choosing  his  own  home  by 
stream  or  grove  or  plot  of  open  ground.' 2 

'  By  stream  or  grove  or  plot  of  open  ground,'  but  most 
of  all  by  grove  and  tree.  Life  beneath  trees  was  the  great 
feature  of  their  existence,  and  tree  worship  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  their  primitive  creed.  The  German's 
house  was  built  about  a  tree.  That  form  of  architecture,  of 
which  we  have  some  faint  traces  among  more  civilised 
Aryas,  as  in  the  description  of  the  chamber  of  Odysseus,3 
was  in  full  use  among  the  Teutons  down  to  historic  days. 
The  house  of  Yolsung  was  supported  by  the  tree  Bran- 
stock,  and  the  world  itself  was  by  imagination  constructed 
in  imitation  of  a  common  dwelling,4  and  had  its  central 
tree,  YggdrasiH.  The  sacred  trees  and  village  trees  long 
survived  the  introduction  of  Christianity-;  they  survive  in 
our  Christmas  trees  of  the  present  day.  In  every  raid 
which  the  new  faith  made  upon  the  old  we  read  of  the 

1  Concerning  the  constitution  of  the  village  community  among  the 
Germans  see  Von  Maurer's  Mark-  u.  Dorf-  Verfassung ;   see  also  Kemble 
on  the  Mark  (Saxons  in  England,  i.  ch.  ii.) 

2  Germ.  c.  16. 
»  See  Chap.  Ii. 

4  The  world  from  the  house,  the  earth  (Erd)  from  the  hearth  (Herd). 


330  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

felling  of  these  sacred  trees.  Near  Gudensberg  in  Hesse, 
formerly Wuodenesberg,  stood  the  oak  dedicated  toWuotan, 
the  greatest  of  the  gods,  and  this  Boniface  cut  down.1  In 
a  deep  forest  recess  stood  the  famous  Irminsul,  which 
Charlemagne  destroyed. 

But,  beside  the  village  trees  which  were  in  the  midst 
of  every  clearing  and  the  house  trees  which  supported 
every  house,  there  was  the  denser  growth  of  untraversed 
forest  land  which  lay  around.  This  dreary  and  waste 
region,  in  which  men  might  sometimes  go  to  pasture  their 
horses  and  cattle,  or  more  often  to  hunt  the  wild  animals 
who  inhabited  there,  was  called  the  mark.  In  after  years, 
when  these  tiny  embryos  of  commonwealths,  the  villages, 
had  expanded  into  states,  the  marks  grew  in  proportion, 
until  they  became  great  territorial  divisions  such  as  our 
Mercia  (Myrcna) ;  the  marches  between  England  and  Wales; 
Denmark,  the  Danes'  mark ;  La  Marque,  which  separated 
that  country  from  Germany ;  the  Wendisch-mark,  which 
divided  Germany  from  the  Slavonic  lands.  And  the 
guardians  of  the  marks  were  turned  into  marquises, 
marchios,  markgrafs.  But  at  the  beginning  these  last 
were  only  the  chief  warriors  of  the  tribe ;  they  had  their 
home  in  the  waste,  and  stood  as  watchmen  between  the 
village  and  the  outer  world ;  so  that  none  might  come  into 
the  village  if  they  came  to  do  it  hurt.  We  know  that  it 
was  a  point  of  honour  with  each  community  to  make  this 
encircling  belt  as  wide  as  possible  :  the  greater  the  mark 
the  greater  was  its  power. 

It  would  be  scarcely  safe  for  the  stranger  to  venture 
across  the  solitudes ;  no  doubt  the  peacefuler  among  the 
villagers  rarely  did  so.  The  men  who  undertook  some 
predatory  excursion  against  a  neighbouring  community 
were  avowedly  entering  a  region  which  lay  outside  their 
customary  life.  The  more  primitive  the  state  of  any 
people,  the  narrower  commonly  is  the  space  of  earth 

1  Grimm,  Deutsche  Mytlwlogie,  i.  126.    At  Geismar  also  there  was  an 
oak  which  Boniface  felled  and  used  in  making  a  Christian  church. 


WORSHIP  IN  THE  FOREST.  331 

within  which  they  are  imbound ;  their  experiences  are 
more  limited ;  and  their  genius,  as  we  should  say,  more 
confined.  For  what  we  call  the  genius  of  a  people  is,  in 
truth  (at  least  it  is  in  early  days),  very  near  indeed  to  what 
the  ancients  understood  by  that  word ;  it  is,  as  the  Greeks 
would  say,  a  daimon  epichorios,  a  watcher  of  holy  places, 
which  infuses  into  these  places  its  spirit  and  partakes  of 
theirs.  A  genius  of  woods,  that  is  forest-like ;  a  genius  of 
wells  and  streams,  that  is  watery. 

Kindly  terrene  guardians  of  mortal  men, 

Hesiod  calls  them. 

So  the  genius  of  the  German  was  narrowed  within  the 
limits  of  his  narrow  world ;  his  primitive  home  with  its 
surrounding  mark  became,  and  long  remained,  for  him  the 
type  of  all  existence ;  from  this  microcosm  he  painted  his 
cosmos ;  and  then,  having  made  a  picture  of  the  world  in 
space,  he  used  the  same  outlines  to  represent  the  world 
in  time,  and  upon  one  model  constructed  his  history  and 
his  prophecy. 

The  Germans  are  described  as  building  no  fanes, 
making  no  images  for  worship,  but  in  their  forest  recesses 
calling  upon  the  unseen  presence  (secretum  illud),  which 
they  honoured  by  the  names  of  various  gods.1  The  word 
'  grove '  is  with  the  German  races  a  convertible  term  with 
'  temple.' 2  '  Single  gods  may  have  had  their  dwellings  in 
mountain-tops,  or  in  rocky  caverns,  or  in  streams;  but 
the  universal  worship  of  the  people  found  its  home  in  the 
grove.'3  Adam  of  Bremen  has  left  us  a  description  of  a 
holy  grove,  as  it  was  to  be  seen  in  Sweden  in  the  eleventh 
century.  It  was  at  Upsala.  '  Every  ninth  year,'  he  says, 
'a  festival  is  celebrated  there  by  all  the  provinces  of 
Sweden,  and  from  taking  a  part  in  this  none  is  exempt. 
King  and  people  must  all  send  their  gifts ;  even  those  who 

1  Germ,  9. 

2  O.  H.  G.  ivih,  grove ;  O.  S.  n'ih,  temple ;  Norse  ve,  holy 
8  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  56. 


332  OUTLINES  OP  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

have  embraced  Christianity  are  not  allowed  to  buy  them- 
selves free  from  attendance.  The  manner  of  the  sacrifice 
is  this :  Nine  of  each  kind  of  living  thing  of  the  male  sex 
are  offered ;  and  by  their  blood  the  gods  are  wont  to  be 
appeased.  Their  bodies  are  hung  in  the  grove  which 
surrounds  the  temple.  The  grove  itself  is  accounted  so 
holy  that  single  trees  in  it  are  considered  as  a  kind  of  gods 
to  the  extent  of  receiving  sacrifices  of  victims.  There  hang 
the  bodies  of  dogs  and  men  alike,  to  the  number,  some 
Christians  have  told  me,  of  seventy- two  together.' ' 
Whatever  Tacitus  may  say,  therefore,  about  the  unseen 
presence,  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  creed  of  the 
Germans  was  largely  founded  upon  a  fetich  worship  of 
the  trees  themselves. 

And  what  is  here  said  of  the  Germans  applies,  in 
almost  equal  measure,  to  the  Celts.  Most  classical  writers, 
who  have  spoken  of  these  people,  have  borne  testimony 
to  the  large  place  which  tree  worship,  or,  at  any  rate, 
which  a  worship  in  the  forest,  occupied  in  the  Celtic 
creed.  Of  one  people,  the  Massilii,  we  know  that,  like  the 
men  of  Upsala,  they  offered  human  sacrifices  to  the  trees;2 
and  of  other  Celts  the  very  name  bestowed  on  their  priests, 
Druids  (from  Spvs,  an  'oak'),  is  a  proof  of  their  addiction 
to  tree  worship.  The  mistletoe  gained  its  sacredness 
from  its  being  born  in  the  bosom  of  the  oak  tree.  Pliny 
has  left  on  record  a  description  of  the  ceremonies  which 
accompanied  the  cutting  of  the  sacred  mistletoe  from  the 
oak ;  and  this  description  is  the  best  picture  which 
remains  to  us  of  the  ritual  of  Druidisrn.  It  is  probable, 
therefore,  that  much  of  what  we  are  about  to  unfold 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  Teutonic  beliefs  would 
apply,  with  only  some  slight  changes,  to  the  creed  of  the 
predecessors  of  the  Germans  in  Northern  and  "Western 
Europe.  Undoubtedly,  in  prehistoric  days,  the  Germans 

1  Adam  of  Bremen,  iv.  27. 

2  Cf .  Lucan,  13.  C.  iii.  405.  'Omnis      .  .  .  humardslustratacruoribusarbos.' 
Maximus  Tyrius  (Dissert.  38)  tells  us  that '  the  Celtic  Zeus  is  a  high  oak.' 


THE  GODS  OF  THE  MARK.  333 

and  Celts  merged  so  much  one  into  the  other  that 
their  histories  cannot  well  be  distinguished.  But  no  sure 
records  of  the  Celtic  religion  have  come  down  to  us ;  so 
we  must  be  content  to  draw  our  picture  from  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Teutonic  folk  alone. 

The  Germans  of  Tacitus'  day  had  certainly  got  beyond 
fetichism  and  the  direct  worship  of  trees.  But  the 
influence  of  tree  worship  still  remained  with  them ;  all 
that  was  most  holy  they  associated  with  the  forest,  or,  to 
use  their  own  term,  with  the  mark.  Their  greatest  gods 
were  the  gods  of  the  mark;  these,  therefore,  are  the 
deities  whom  we  must  first  take  into  account. 

Now  the  word  '  mark,'  which  at  first  meant  '  forest,' ] 
came,  in  after  years,  to  signify  boundary.  The  mark  was 
always  the  division  between  village  and  village.  When 
the  beginnings  of  commerce  are  set  in  motion  among  any 
nation,  it  is  in  the  midst  of  neutral  territories  such  as 
these,  half-way  between  one  community  and  another,  that 
the  exchange  takes  place.  The  market  is  held  in  the 
mark.2  The  Greeks  and  Komans,  who  had  once  their 
village  communities,  had  once  too,  I  suppose,  their  sur- 
rounding marks.  And  when  we  think  of  the  origin  of 
their  markets — their  agorse,  their  fora — we  must  let  our 
imaginations  wander  back  to  a  time  when  these  barter 
places  were  not  in  the  midst  of  the  city,  but  in  wild  spots 
far  away.  The  god  who  among  the  Greeks  presided  over 
the  agora,  and  over  all  which  was  connected  with  it — 
over  buying  and  selling,  over  assemblies  and  public  games 
—was  Hermes.  But  Hermes  did  this  because  he  was  by 
rights  a  god  of  the  wind.  Far  more  true,  therefore, 
was  he  to  his  real  nature  when  he  guarded  the  forest 
markets  and  haunted  their  solitudes,  as  the  wind  god 
must  always  do. 

With  the  Germans,  in  the  times  whereof  I  speak,  the 
mark  had  not  lost  its  original  character.  It  was  the  most 

1  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  56  2  Cf .  merx,  Mercury. 


33-1  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

important — because  the  least  explored  and  most  awe- 
inspiring — part  of  the  German's  world;  wherefore  the 
god  of  the  mark,  the  god  of  winds  and  storms,  was  the 
greatest  of  his  divinities.  He  was  Odhinn  (Wuotan). 
Tacitus  said  of  the  Germans  of  his  day  that  they  worshipped 
Mercury,  Hercules,  and  Mars,  and  Mercury  chief  of  all. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  by  Mercury  Wuotan  is  meant ; 
by  Hercules  and  Mars,  Thorr  (Donar)  and  Tyr  (Zio). 
Wuotan  stands  in  the  centre,  as  Wodens-day  stands 
between  Tewes-day  (Tyr's-day)  and  Thors-day l — in  the 
centre  and  far  above  the  other  two.  His  name  is  not 
•wanting  from  the  pantheon  of  any  Teutonic  people.  The 
Germans  of  Germany  called  him  Wuotan  ;  the  Norsemen, 
Odhinn ;  the  English,  Woden  (Yodan)  ;  the  Lombards, 
Gwodan.2  The  tree  and  the  forest  are  the  central  points 
of  German  life,  and  Odhinn  is  the  spirit  of  the  tree  and 
the  breath  of  the  forest ;  for  he  is  the  wind. 

We  have  followed  out  the  process  whereby  the  older 
god  of  the  sky,  common  alike  to  all  the  members  of  the 
Indo-European  family,  gave  place,  in  many  cases,  to  a 
more  active  god ;  whereby  Indra  and  Zeus,  each  in  their 
spheres,  supplanted  Dyaus.  And  when  we  were  following 
out  that  process  something  was  said  of  how  a  similar 
change  could  be  traced  in  the  Teutonic  creed.  The  new 
and  active  god  is,  in  this  case,  Odhinn.  The  wind  is  a 
far  more  physical  and  less  abstract  conception  than  the 
sky  or  the  heaven;  it  is  also  a  more  variable  phenome- 
non ;  and  by  reason  of  both  these  recommendations  the 
wind  god  superseded  the  older  Dyaus,  who  reappears,  in 

1  I  shall,  in  future,  use  the  Norse  mode  of  spelling  for  the  names  of  the 
gods  whenever  these  are  such  as  are  mentioned  in  the  Eddas.     The  reason 
for  doing  this  is  that  the  references  to  the  Eddas  are  so  much  more  frequent 
than  references  to  any  other  authority  for  German  belief. 

2  '  Wodan  sane,  quern  adjecta  liter;!,  Gwodan  dixerunt,  et  ab  universis 
gentibus  ut  deus  adoratur '  (Paulus  Diaconus,  i.  8).     This  litera  adjecta  is 
only  in  keeping  with  the  Italian  use  in  respect  to  German  names — as 
Wilhelm,  Guglelmo ;  Wishart,  Guiscardo,  &c.    Warnefrid  is  naturally  speak- 
ing of  the  Lombards  after  they  were  Italicised.     Odhinn  is  from  a  verb 
va'Sa,  to  go  violently,  to  rush ;  as  "Epfirjs,  from 


ODHINN,  THOKK,  AND  TYR.  335 

a  changed  form,  as  Tyr  or  Zio.  Tyr  is  one  of  the  three 
great  gods  mentioned  by  Tacitus ;  but,  for  all  that,  he 
was  always  far  inferior  in  importance  to  both  Wuotan  and 
Donar.  Among  the  Norsemen  he  was  frequently  sup- 
planted by  another  god,  Freyr,  and  the  trilogy  then  stood 
thus  :  Odhinn.  Thorr,  and  Freyr. 

German  religion,  like  most  creeds,  had  its  energetic 
and  warlike  and  its  placid  and  peaceful  sides;  the  first 
one  was  here,  as  elsewhere,  represented  by  the  gods  of  air 
and  heaven,  the  other  by  the  gods  (and  goddesses)  of 
earth.  But,  as  we  might  guess  from,  the  character  of 
the  German  people,  with  them  the  warlike  part  by  far 
outweighed  the  peaceful.  This  side  of  their  creed  was 
represented  by  the  gods  of  the  mark.  It  seems  especially 
to  centre  in  Odhinn.  Beside  Odhinn  stood  Thorr,  very 
like  him  in  character,  yet  with  a  distinct  individuality, 
bearing  something  the  same  relation  to  his  father  which 
Apollo  bore  to  Zeus.  Odhinn  became  so  much  the  repre- 
sentative god  of  the  Teutons  that  he  could  not  remain 
wedded  always  to  one  aspect  of  nature ;  for  he  had  to 
accommodate  himself  to  the  various  moods  of  men's 
worship.  Still  we  need  never  imagine  him  without  some 
reference  in  our  thoughts  to  the  wind,  which  may  be 
gentle,  but  in  thes6  Northern  lands  is  generally  violent ; 
whose  home  is  naturally  far  up  in  the  heavens,  but  which 
loves  too  sometimes  to  wander  over  the  earth. 

Just  as  the  chief  god  of  Greece,  having  descended  to 
be  a  divinity  of  storm,  was  not  content  to  remain  only 
that,  but  grew  again  to  some  likeness  of  the  olden 
Dyaus,1  so  Odhinn  came  to  absorb  almost  all  the  qualities 
which  belong  of  right  to  a  higher  God.  Yet  he  did  this 
without  putting  off  his  proper  nature.  He  was  the  heaven 
as  well  as  the  wind ;  he  was  the  All-Father,  embracing 
all  the  earth 2  and  looking  down  upon  mankind.  His 

1  See  Ch.  IV. 

2  Alfoftr ;  originally,  no  doubt,  as  Eangi  in  the  Maori  tale  is  the  All- 
Father,  because  the  Heaven  begets  all  living  things.     But  in  the  Norsa 
belief  this  idea  has  become  moralised. 


336  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

seat  was  in  heaven,  and  from  heaven's  window  (hlid- 
skialf J)  he  could  see  not  only  the  Gods'  City  (the  .ZEsirs' 
burg,  Asgard)  and  Man's  Home  (Mannheimar),  but  far 
away  over  the  earth-girdling  sea  to  icy  Jotunheiniar, 
where  giants  dwelt,  and  where  was  the  Land  of  Death.2 
In  this  way  Odhinn  was  a  perpetual  watchman,  who  kept 
the  dwellings  of  gods  and  men  free  from  alarms. 

For  the  giants,  like  the  Greek  Titan  race,  were  the 
enemies  of  the  gods  and  of  men,3  and  were  for  ever 
trying  to  make  their  way  against  the  city  of  the  gods. 
Fate  had  decreed  that  one  day  a  great  final  battle  between 
the  gods  and  giants  was  to  ensue  ;  it  was  the  Armaged- 
don of  the  Norse  religion ;  but  till  that  day  s'hould  come 
Odhinn  kept  watch  and  ward,  and  kept  the  giants  off. 
Odhinn  was  the  wisest  of  all  the  gods  ('pa  ert  se  visastr 
vera  OSinn — Thou  art  the  wisest  ever,  Odhinn ') ;  he  alone 
could  look  into  futurity;  and  mythology  told  a  tale  of 
how  Odhinn  had  won  this  priceless  gift  of  prophecy  by 
coming  to  the  Well  of  Wisdom,  guarded  by  a  certain 
Mimir,4  of  the  race  of  the  giants,  and  by  obtaining  a  drink 
therefrom.  But  the  god  could  only  obtain  the  draught 
at  the  price  of  one  of  his  eyes,  which  he  was  compelled  to 
throw  into  the  water.5  The  story  was,  no  doubt,  originally 

1 '  Lid-shelf,'  the  window  or  seat  of  Odhinn.  Grimnismal  (prose) ;  Hrafn. 
O'S.  10 ;  cf .  with  Gmml.  I.e.,  Paulus  Diac.  i.  8. 

2  See  Chaps.  VI.  and  VIII. 

3  Much  more  so,  in  fact,  than  the  Titans. 

4  Or  Mimr. 

5  All  know  I,  Odhinn.     Where  thou  thine  eye  didst  loose, 
In  wide- wondered  Mimir's  well, 

*Each  morn  drinks  Mimir,  from  Val- Father's  pledge. 
Know  ye  what  that  means  or  no  ? — Vb'luspd,  22. 

This  Mimir  is  a  curious  being.  Etymologically  he  is  connected  with 
/ju/j.vf)ffKa:,  meminisco,  memor,  &c.,  and  hence  with  Minos.  Minos  is  the  first 
man  (all  these  words  from  root  md,  to  measure),  and  much  the  same  as 
Yama  and  Yima.  (See  Ch.  IV.,  and  Benfey's  Hermes,  Minos  und  Tar- 
tarus.} Mimir  seems  also  to  be  a  personification  of  the  sea,  or  earlier  of 
the  earth-girding  river,  and  therefore  the  same  as  Oceanus.  (See  Chs.  II. 
and  VI.  for  Oceanus  in  character  as  parent  of  all — root  off,  Ogyges,  &c.) 
The  sons  of  Mimir  who  dance  at  the  end  of  the  world  (Voluspa",  47)  are 
the  waves. 


ODHINN.  337 

a  nature  myth.  Odhinn's  eye  is  the  sun ; ]  the  well  of 
Mimir  is  the  river  of  rivers  which  runs  round  the  earth, 
the  father  of  all  fetiches  and  of  all  wells  of  wisdom.2  And 
as  Odhinn's  eye  is  here  the  sun,  Odhinn  must,  in  this  his 
character  of  the  Wise  One,  be  the  heaven. 

Having  become  thus  learned,  Odhinn  proceeded  to 
impart  his  knowledge  to  mankind ;  and  in  this  aspect  of 
him  he  was  the  gentle  breeze  which  visits  men  in  their 
homesteads  and  sees  them  at  their  daily  toil.  Odhinn 
taught  mankind  the  great  art  of  runes,  which  means  both 
writing  and  magic,  and  many  other  .arts  of  life.  He 
is  represented  as  continually  wandering  over  the  earth 
and  coming  to  visit  human  habitations.  In  most  creeds 
it  is  too  much  the  fault  of  the  heaven  god  that  he  lives 
remote  from  human  affairs ;  this  fault  does  not  lie  at  the 
door  of  Odhinn,  who  is  the  wind  as  well  as  the  sky. 

In  this  gentler  aspect  of  his  character — the  visitor  to 
human  homes,  the  wise  friend  and  counsellor  of  men — 
Odhinn  was  called  Gagnrad,3  which  means  '  the  giver  of 
good  counsel.'  Indeed,  the  two  chief  by-names  of  Odhinn 
seem  to  express  the  wind  in  its  two  aspects — either  when 
coming  to  men  as  the  storm  in  which  whole  navies  sink, 
or  coming  as  the  gentler  wandering  breeze.  These  two 
names  are  Yggr  and  Gagnrad.  Yggr  is  the  '  Terrible.' 
It  is  as  Yggr  that  Odhinn  is  the  overseer  and  ruler  of  the 
world;  for  the  world  tree,  Odhinn's  ash,  is  called  Ygg- 
drasill.4  As  Gagnrad  Odhinn  comes  in  a  simpler  fashion 
to  teach  arts  and  magic. 

It  is  not  generally  as  the  gentle  wind,  nor  as  a 
messenger  of  peace,  that  the  Northern  god  appears  to 
us  in  myth  and  saga.  His  chief  business  with  men  was 

1  The  sun  is,  as  we  have  seen,  called  the  eye  of  Mitra  and  Varuwa  in  the 

Vedas.     See  Ch.  III.  2  See  Ch.  II. 

8  Probably  this  god  is  also  the  Gangleri, '  the  ganger,'  of  the  Gylfaginning, 
4  Odhinn  appears  under  the  name  of  Ygg  on  those  occasions  especially 

when  he  undertakes  to  visit  the  other  world  and  the  realm  of  giants,  £c. 

(cf.  Vegtamskvifta,  8  ;  Vaf J>rut>nismal,  5).     Ygg  has  those  who  fall  by  the 

sword  (Grimnismal,  53).     These  facts,  taken  in  connection  with  the  name 

of  Yggdrasill,  show  Yggr  as  the  lord  of  life  and  death. 


338  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

at  tlie  battle  field ;  and  his  duty  there  was  to  collect  the 
souls  of  all  the  brave  who  had  fallen  in  battle,  and  to 
transport  these  to  the  heaven  prepared  for  them.  This 
home  of  dead  heroes  was  called  Valholl,  the  Hall  of  the 
Chosen.  In  thus  bearing  souls  away  Odhinn  was  serving 
the  interests  both  of  gods  and  men,  for  the  more  heroes 
that  were  collected  in  heaven  the  stronger  would  be  the 
army  of  the  gods  when  it  sallied  out  to  fight  the  great 
last  fight  against  the  giant  powers.  f  Odhinn,  when  he 
came  among  men,  was  seen  generally  in  the  guise  of  an 
old  one-eyed  man — one-eyed  because  he  sank  his  eye  in 
Mimr's  well — clad  in  a  blue  cloak  (the  mantle  of  the  wind, 
the  air,  or  cloud),  and  wearing  a  broad-brimmed  hat. 
This  last  is  the  same  as  the  cap  of  concealment,  the 
tarn-kappe,1  known  to  the  Nibelungen  lay  and  to  many 
folk  tales,  and  is  in  its  physical  aspect  the  vdark  cloud  or 
the  night.  Odhinn's  coming  was  rather  to  be  dreaded 
than  longed  for;  seeing  that,  like  the  raven,  he  scented 
slaughter  from  afar.  He  was,  in  this  respect,  like  that 
Norse  king  described  in  one  of  Fouque's  tales,  who,  when- 
ever he  showed  himself,  was  sure  to  be  the  forerunner  of 
misfortune,  so  that  men  got  to  dread  above  all  things  the 
sight  of  his  helmet  with  vulture  wings.  We  have  a  pic- 
ture of  Odhinn  coming  to  the  house  of  Sigmund  precisely 
in  this  guise  of  an  old  one-eyed  man.  In  the  back  of  the 
house-tree  he  left  sticking  the  sword  Gram  as  a  prize  to 
whosoever  should  be  able  to  pluck  it  out ;  and  that  sword 
was  the  cause  of  strife  and  of  bloodshed  to  the  Yolsungs 
and  Giukungs.2 

1  Tarn-Kappe,  cap  of  concealment,  from  ternen. 

"  The  scene  has  been  admirably  pictured  by  Mr.  Morris : — 

Then  into  the  Volsung  dwelling  a  mighty  man  there  strode, 
One-eyed  and  seeming  ancient,  yet  bright  his  visage  glowed ; 
Cloud  blue  was  the  hood  upon  him,  and  his  kirtle  gleaming-grey, 
As  the  latter-morning  sun  dog  when  the  storm  is  on  the  way. 

So  strode  he  to  the  branstock,  nor  greeted  any  lord, 

But  forth  from  his  cloudy  raiment  he  drew  a  gleaming  sword 

And  smote  it  deep  in  the  tree  bole.' — Sigurd  the  Volsung. 


ODHINN.  339 

When  the  battle  has  actually  begun,  Odhinn  goes  to 
it  not  in  this  disguised  manner,  but  in  true  wind-wise. 
The  picture  we  have  is  of  him  riding  through  the  air  on 
his  eight-footed  horse  Sleipnir,  the  swiftest  of  steeds. 
Over  sea  and  land  he  rushes,  through  mountain  gorges 
and  through  endless  pine  forests.  He  breathes  into  men 
the  battle  fury,  for  which  the  North  folk  had  a  special' 
name — the  berserksgangr,  berserk's  way.1 

The  greater  part  of  the  forests  of  Northern  Europe  are 
black  forests — that  is  to  say,  composed  of  pine  trees — and  in 
such  the  coming  of  the  storm  is  made  the  more  wonderful 
from  the  silence  which  has  reigned  there  just  before.  Who 
that  has  known  it  does  not  remember  this  strange  stillness 
of  the  pine  forest?  Anon  the  quiet  is  broken  by  a  distant 
sound,  so  like  the  sound  of  the  sea  that  we  can  fancy 
we  distinctly  hear  the  waves  drawing  backwards  over  a 
pebbly  beach.  As  it  comes  nearer  the  sound  increases  to  a 
roar :  it  is  the  rush  of  the  wind  among  the  boughs.  Such 
was  the  coming  of  Odhinn.  And  now  see  !  far  overhead 
with  the  wind  are  riding  the  clouds.  These  are  the  misty 
beings,  born  of  the  river  or  the  sea,  whom  we  have  already 
encountered  in  so  many  different  mythologies.  In  India 
they  were  Apsaras2  (formless  ones)  or  Gandharvas;  in 
Greece  they  were  nymphs,  nereids,  Muses,  Aphrodites, 
Tritogeneias.  In  the  Teutonic  creeds  they  are  the  warlike, 
fierce  Valkyriur.3 

The  myth  of  the  Valkyriur,  as  it  was  developed  by  the 
Teutons,  became  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  and  likewise 


1  Zeus  also  did  something  of  the  kind.     See  the  description  of  Hector 
in  11.  xv.  605,  &c.  :— 

Maivero  .... 

'A<f>Aoio>bs  5e  irepl  (n6{j.a  ytyvero,  rfc  8e  ot  offfft 
Aa^7reV07jj/  f}\oavprjffiv  UTT'  cxppvcrw   .... 
.   .   .  aurbj  yd-p  ol  OITT'  aldepos  %et>  a^vvTvp 
Zfvs.  ... 

2  On  the  nature  of  the  Apsaras  see  Chap.  II.,  and  compare  Weber's  Ind 
Stud.  i.  398. 

3  Icl.  sing.  Valkyria,  plur.  Valkyriur,  Germ.  Walchwriiw. 

z  2 


340  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  most  characteristic,  in  all  their  mythic  lore.  In 
essential  features,  however,  the  Yalkyriur  resemble  other 
beings  of  like  birth  in  the  Indo-European  creeds ;  where- 
fore the  germ  of  the  Yalkyriur  myth  may  be  discovered  in 
the  earlier  creeds  of  India  and  of  Greece. 

In  one  of  the  later  Vedas  we  are  told  a  story  concerning 
certain  fairy  maidens,  Gandharvas,  who  can  at  will  change 
themselves  into  the  likeness  of  birds.  One  of  these,  who 
was  called  Urvasi,  fell  in  love  with  a  mortal,  Pururavas, 
and  for  awhile  they  lived  happily  together ;  but  the  kindred 
of  the  fairy  laid  a  plot  against  her  joy,  and  contrived  the 
separation  of  Urvasi  and  Pururavas.  The  wife  left  her 
husband,  and  he  wandered  about  to  all  lands  seeking  her 
in  vain.  At  length  he  came  to  a  lake  on  which  Urvasi 
was  sitting  with  her  kinsfolk ;  but  they  were  transformed 
into  birds,  and  he  knew  them  not.  .  .  ,J  The  story,  in  its 
essential  meaning,  is  the  myth  of  the  loves  of  the  sun  and 
of  the  dawn ;  and  the  dawn  (Ushas-Urvasi)  is  here  bodied 
forth  to  sense  as  a  cloud.  The  Gandharvas  are  beings  of 
the  same  kind  as  the  Valkyriur,  and  in  this  particular 
tale  they  are  the  clouds  of  morning.  The  idea  of  such 
bird  fairies  is  to  be  found  in  the  mythologies  of  most 
races  of  the  Indo-European  family.  Athene  and  Hera,  as 
heaven  goddesses,  sometimes  were  seen  as  birds — that  is 
to  say,  they  sometimes  became  visible  as  clouds.  In  the 
Teuton  myth  of  the  Yalkyriur  these  maidens  of  Odhinn  can 
transform  themselves  into  swans,  and  in  this  shape  they 
fly  through  the  air  with  the  god.  They  are  thus  called 
*  Odhinn's  swan  maidens,'  and  also  '  Odhinn's  shield 
maidens '  and  '  helm  maidens.' 

Here  is  one  description  of  these  maidens  from  the 
Yoluspa.  The  wise  woman  who  speaks  in  that  poem 
tells  us  that — 


1  The  story  has  been  published  and  explained  by  Prof.  Max  Miiller  in 
his  Chips  from,  a  German  Workshop,  vol.  ii.  It  is  from  the  Brahmana  of 
the  Yajur  Veda. 


THE  VALKYEIUE.  341 

She  saw  Valkyriur  coming  from  afar, 
Ready  to  ride  to  the  gods'  gathering. 
Skuld  held  the  shield ;  Skogull  was  another. 
Grran,  Hild,  Gondul,  and  Geirskogull 
Now  named  are  the  Noras  of  Odhinn, 
Who  as  Valkyriur  ride  the  earth  over.1 

And  again — 

Three  troops  of  maidens,  though  one  maid  foremost  rode. 
Their  horses  shook  themselves,  and  from  their  manes  there  fell 
Dew  in  the  deep  dales  and  on  the  high  trees  hail. 

In  which,  their  origin  from  the  clouds  is  very  clearly 
shown. 

Altogether  we  have  a  fine  imaginative  picture  drawn 
from  the  study  of  the  wind  and  its  accompanying  sights 
and  sounds.  By  day,  when  the  white  clouds  are  sailing 
overhead  like  white  swans,  these  are  the  Valkyriur 
shedding  dew  down  into  the  dales.  By  night  the  scream 
of  wild  birds  mingles  with  the  screaming  of  the  storm  ; 
and  this  again  is  the  sound  of  Odhinn  and  the  Valkyriur 
hurrying  to  the  battle  field,  scenting  the  slaughter,  hearing 
from  afar  the  din  of  arms. 

The  Valkyriur  were  called,  it  has  been  said,  '  swan 
maidens.'  Swan  is,  etymologically,  any  bird  that  can 
swim ;  and  though  of  course  the  word  was  never  applied 
so  promiscuously  as  that,  it  may  have  been  used  for  sea 
fowl,  which  are  like  the  swan  in  two  particulars — first,  in 
being  white;  secondly,  in  swimming.  We  find  the  sea 
called  the  swan's  road  (swan-rad)  in  Beowulf.  So  in  our 
imaginary  picture  of  the  Valkyriur  we  may  include  sea 
birds  such  as  those  who  woke  the  hill  goddess  Skadi  in 
her  bed  upon  the  stormy  Northern  shore. 

The  Valkyriur  were  not  always  goddesses.  They 
might  be  mortal  maidens;  and  in  fact  there  are  many 
Northern  tales  in  which  they  play  the  part  of  heroines. 
The  story  of  Urvasi  and  Pururavas  finds  its  closest  counter- 

>  Voluspa,  24. 


342  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

part  among  the  Eddaic  myths  in  the  history  of  Voltmd 
and  his  brothers  and  of  the  three  Yalkyriur  whom  they 
wedded.  Volund  is  the  Hephsestus  of  the  North,  the 
great  smith,  a  being  well  known  to  Saxon  legend  as 
Weland  or  Wayland  Smith.1  '  There  were,'  says  the  Edda, 
'  three  brothers,  sons  of  a  Finn  king.  One  was  called 
Slagfid,  another  Egil,  and  the  third  Volund.  They  went 
on  snow-shoes  and  hunted  wild  beasts.  They  came  to  the 
Wolf  Dale,  and  made  themselves  a  house  where  there  is  a 
water  called  Ulfsjar  (Wolf  Sea).  One  morning  early  they 
found  beside  the  water  three  women  sitting  and  spinning 
flax.  Near  them  lay  their  swan  robes,  for  they  were 
Valkyriur.  Two  of  them,  Hladgud  Svanhvit2  and  Hervor 
Alvit,3  were  daughters  to  King  Hlodver ;  the  third,  Olrun,4 
a  daughter  of  Kiar  of  Valland.  The  men  took  them  home 
with  them  to  their  dwelling ;  Egil  had  Olrun,  Slagvid 
Svaiihvit,  and  Volund  Alvit.  These  Valkyriur  lived  with 
their  husbands  seven  years ;  but  at  the  end  of  that  time 
they  flew  away,  seeking  battles,  and  did  not  return.  Egil 
went  off  on  his  snow-shoes  to  seek  for  Olrun,  and  Slagfid 
went  in  search  of  Svanhvit ;  but  Volund  abode  in  Wolf 
Dale.' 5 

This  story  bears  in  one  or  two  points  a  resemblance  to 
the  tales  of  bird  maidens  in  other  mythologies.  The  find- 
ing of  the  three  by  the  water  in  the  morning 6  is  like  the 
meeting  of  Pururavas  and  the  Gandharvas  in  the  Vedic 
tale.  The  marriage  of  Volund  and  Alvit  is  comparable  to 
the  marriage  of  Hephsestus  and  Aphrodite  or  the  attempted 


1  See  Beowulf,  914,  &c. 

2  Swan-white. 

3  All-white. 

4  Alrun  (Aurinia,  Tac.),  the  typical  name  of  a  prophetess. 
6  Volundarkvifta,  beginning. 

6  These  three  Valkyriur  have  some  relationship  to  the  three  Norns  or 
fates  (see  Voluspa,  24,  just  quoted,  where  the  Valkyriur  are  called  Norns), 
who  spin  like  them,  and,  like  the  Valkyriur,  generally  know  the  future. 
All  are  essentially  stream  goddesses ;  the  connection  between  the  Norns 
and  Urd's  fount  is  unmistakable.  The  Valkyriur  became  clouds,  having 
been  previously  streams  (see  Chap.  II.) 


BRYNIIILD   A   VALKYRIA.  343 

enforcement  of  Athene.  Both  Aphrodite  and  Athene 
belong  to  the  order  of  cloud  goddesses.1 

More  interesting  still  and  more  beautiful  were  the 
adventures  of  another  Valkyr ia,  the  famous  Brynhild. 
Of  these  it  would  take  too  long  to  tell  the  whole.  But  the 
beginning  of  her  history  is  that  in  which  she  appears  in 
her  character  of  swan  maiden,  and  this  part  is  thus 
narrated  in  the  Sigrdrifumal  and  in  the  Fafnismal.  In 
the  former  of  these  lays  Brynhild  appears  under  the  name 
of  Sigrdrifa.2  There  were,  it  is  said,  two  kings  who  had 
made  war.  One  was  named  Hjalmgunnar  (War  Helm),  an 
old  warrior  befriended  by  Odhinn.  The  other  was  Agnar, 
whose  cause  no  one  had  espoused.  And  we  learn  from 
this  story  that  the  Yalkyriur  were  not  always  attached  to 
the  train  of  Odhinn  ;  for  Sigrdrifa  ranged  herself  with 
Agnar  and  caused  him  to  gain  the  victory.  In  revenge 
for  this  audacity  Odhinn  pricked  the  maiden  with  a  sleep 
thorn  and  sent  her  into  a  slumber  on  Hindarfjoll.  The 
sleep  thorn,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  is  a  symbol 
of  death ;  and  therefore,  as  the  myth  was  at  first  under- 
stood, the  meaning  of  this  pricking  doubtless  was  that 
Odhinn  had  slain  Brynhild.  But  in  the  form  in  which 
we  read  the  story  this  incident  has  been  softened  down. 
Sigrdrifa  only  fell  into  a  sound  slumber.  The  ingenious 
reader  has  perhaps  already  detected  in  this  adventure  the 
germ  of  one  of  our  most  familiar  nursery  tales.  Anon 
came  the  prince  to  awake  the  maiden  from  her  sleep. 
He  was  the  famous  Sigurd,  and  it  was  the  incident  just 
related  which  was  the  prelude  to  his  first  meeting  with 
Brynhild. 

Sigurd  had  just  returned  from  slaying  the  famous 
serpent  Fafnir,  who  guarded  the  treasure  of  gold.  When 

1  Aphrodite  is  not  the  wife  of  Hephaestus  in  the  Iliad ;  but  that  pro- 
bably only  shows  that  the  poet  followed  another  tradition,  not  that  her 
marriage  with  the*  Smith  was  unknown  then. 

2  Victory-giver  (lit.  driver}  =  Gr.  Nike.     I  hope  at  another  time  to  have 
an  opportunity  of  tracing  the  relationship  between  the  Greek  Nike,  the 
Norse  Valkyria,  and  the  mediaeval  conception  of  the  Angel. 


344  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

Fafnir  had  been  killed,  Sigurd  took  out  his  heart  and 
roasted  and  ate  it.  At  once  he  became  possessed  of  pro- 
phetic gifts,  and  could  understand  the  speech  of  birds. 
Then  where  he  sat  he  heard  the  eagles  speaking  overhead. 
They  told  one  another  of  his  deeds,  and  they  prophesied 
his  meeting  with  Brynhild,  which  was  presently  to  come 
about  and  cause  his  after  dule.  As  he  listened  they  told 
one  another  of  the  green  paths  which  the  Fates  were 
making  smooth  to  lead  him  to  the  house  of  Giuki,  and  of 
the  fair  maiden  who  there  awaited  him.  An  eagle  said — l 

A  hall  is  on  high,  Hindarfjoll ; 
With  fire  without  'tis  all  surrounded. 
Mighty  lords  that  palace  builded 
Of  undimmed  earth-flame. 

And  another  eagle  answered — 

I  know  that  on  the  fell  a  war  maiden  sleeps. 
Around  her  flickers  the  lindens'  bane.2 

Thou  mayst  gaze  at  the  helmed  maiden. 

She  from  the  slaughter  on  Vingskomir  rode. 

Sigrdrifa's  sleep  none  awaken  may 

Of  the  sons  of  princes,  before  the  Norns  appoint. 

So  Sigurd  rode,  as  it  was  said,  and  found  Brynhild 
lying  asleep  on  Hindarfjoll.  He  opened  her  corselet  with 
his  sword  Gram,  and  she  awoke  and  raised  herself,  and 
said — 

Who  has  slit  my  byrnie  ? 

How  has  my  sleep  been  broken  ? 

Who  has  loosed  from  me  the  fallow  bands  ? 

And  he  answered — 

Sigmund's  son  with  Sigurd's  sword 
But  now  has  severed  thy  war  weeds. 

Then  Sigurd  besought  her  to  teach  him  wisdom,  and 
the  rest  of  this  poem  is  devoted  to  the  runes  and  wise 
1  Fafnismdl,  42-44.  2  I.e.  fire. 


GLOOM  OF  THE  TEUTON'S  CKEED.  345 

sayings  which  Sigrdrifa  was  supposed  to  hare  repeated. 
Whence  we  see  how  large  a  part  the  Valkyriur  had  in  the 
wisdom  and  magic  power  which  belonged  to  the  Fates  and 
prophetesses. 

These  cloudy  beings,  remote  as  they  may  seem  from 
the  things  of  nature  and  from  the  experience  of  life, 
filled  a  considerable  space  in  Teutonic  thought.  They 
represented  the  ideal  of  womanhood  to  the  rude  chivalry 
of  the  North.  Their  functions  were  twofold;  they  pre- 
sided over  battles,  and  foretold  future  events.  Tacitus 
and  Csesar  have  described  how  the  German  wives  used  to 
urge  their  husbands  forward  in  the  day  of  the  fight,  and 
how,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  an  army  which  had 
actually  turned  to  fly  had  been  driven  back  against  the 
spears  of  their  opponents  by  the  exhortations  or  the  jibes 
of  their  womankind.  The  same  writers  have  told  us  of 
the  prophetic  powers  ascribed  to  women  by  the  Teutons — 
of  an  Aurinia  (a  name  which  appears  in  the  Olrun  of  the 
VolundarkvrSa),  who  is  taken  for  a  single  individual  by 
Tacitus.  The  name  is  probably  that  of  a  whole  class  of 
wise  women.  These  Valkyriur  had  some  influence  upon 
the  Middle  Age  conceptions  of  angels,  and  a  greater 
influence  (as  in  a  future  chapter  we  shall  show)  upon  the 
conception  of  witches. 

The  German  gods  are — if  I  may  make  such  a  com- 
parative— less  immortal  than  those  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
I  do  not  know  that  the  latter  were  really  expected  to  live 
for  ever,  seeing  that  there  was  a  constant  lurking  expec- 
tation that  the  reign  of  Zeus  would  end  as  it  had  begun, 
and  make  way  for  the  restoration  of  the  milder  Kronos. 
In  the  myth  of  Prometheus  the  notion  is  very. clearly  set 
forth.  Nevertheless  to  the  Greek  gods  are  constantly 
applied  such  phrases  as  aOdvaroi,  immortal,  ol  asl  ovrss,  the 
ever-living.  So  it  is  evident  that  the  idea  of  the  Olympians 
dying  in  a  body,  though  it  was  not  altogether  extinguished, 
was  pushed  quite  into  the  background.  In  the  Norse  creed 


346  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

this  was  not  the  case.  The  gloomy  outer  world  of  the 
Teuton  was  so  large  as  contrasted  with  the  narrow  limits 
of  his  home  and  homestead  that  for  him  life  itself  seemed 
to  be  surrounded  by  a  veil  of  darkness,  and  at  the  end  of 
every  aveune  of  hope  there  seemed  to  stand  an  immovable 
shadow.  The  general  idea  of  life  in  its  relation  to  death, 
and  of  the  known  in  its  relation  to  the  unknown,  which 
appears  throughout  the  Teutonic  beliefs,  has  never  been 
more  beautifully  expressed  than  by  that  saying  of  a  thane 
of  the  Saxon  king  Eadwine,  at  the  time  when  Paulinus 
came  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Northumbrians.  '  This 
life,'  said  he,  'is  like  the  passage  of  a  bird  from  the 
darkness  without  into  a  lighted  room,  where  you,  King, 
are  seated  at  supper,  while  storms  of  rain  and  snow  rage 
abroad.  The  sparrow,  flying  in  at  one  door  and  straight- 
way out  at  another,  is,  while  within,  safe  from  the  storm ; 
but  soon  it  vanishes  into  the  darkness  whence  it  came.' l 

It  was  in  the  spirit  of  these  words  that  the  Norseman 
saw  gloom  in  the  past  and  in  the  future ;  the  world  had 
sprung  out  of  chaos,  and  into  chaos  and  darkness  it  was 
to  sink  again.  There  was  to  be  an  end  of  the  .ZEsir  and 
of  Asgard,  a  '  Gods'  Doom  '  (Ragnarok 2),  when  the  ^Esir 
and  the  giant  race  were  to  meet  in  mutually  destructive 
battle,  and  chaos  should  come  again.  We  have  seen  how 
Odhinn,  who  knew  most  about  the  future,  was  for  ever  on 
the  watch  against  the  coming  of  the  giants ;  and  how  he 
continually  recruited  his  band  of  heroes.  Of  these  more 
than  four  hundred  thousand  would,  it  was  said,  go  forth 
to  fight  on  the  Last  Day.3 

1  Beda,  ii.  13.    A  saying  often  quoted,  e.g.,  by  Wordsworth  in  his  Eccle- 
siastical Sonnets. 

2  The  usual  writing  of  this  word  in  the  Edda  Snorra  is  Ragnarokr,  i.e. 
'  Twilight  of  the  Gods.'     This  is  evidently,  however,  a  corruption  from  an 
earlier  form,  Ragnarok,  <  Doom  of  the  Gods.'     See  Vigf usson  and  Cleasby's 
Icelandic  Dictionary^  s.v.  <R6kr.'     This  change  of  the  word  is,  in  my  eyes, 
a  witness  to  the  antiquity  of  the  belief  in  Ragnarok.     All  modern  writers 
have  (naturally  enough)  followed  the  corrupted  form  of  the  word  made  use 
of  in  the  Edda  Snorra. 

3  In  exact  numbers  432,000— that  is  to  say,  800  out  of  each  of  the   540 
gates  of  Valholl,  as  is  said  in  Grimnismal,  23 — 


THE  TEUTON'S  WORLD.  347 

Beside  the  duty  of  their  keeping  themselves  armed  and 
exercised  against  the  day  of  trial,  it  would  seem  that  the 
gods  must  ride  every  day  to  tbe  Urdar  fount  beneath  the 
roots  of  Yggdrasill,  to  take  counsel  about  the  future,  and 
perhaps  also  about  the  present  governance  of  the  world. 
They  rode  together  along  the  rainbow — Asbru,  the  JE  sir's 
bridge,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  or  otherwise  Bifrost,  the 
trembling  mile.1 

This,  then,  is  the  world  of  the  Norseman.  Asgard  is 
far  away,  hidden  in  the  clouds,  or  to  be  caught  sight  of, 
perhaps,  between  the  clouds  of  sunset — a  city  glittering 
with  bright  gold,  set  upon  a  hill.  Now  and  again,  more- 
over, men  may  see,  bright-shining  and  trembling  between 
earth  and  heaven,  the  .ZEsir's  bridge,  the  rainbow.  This  is 
the  Kinv&d  or  the  Sirat 2  of  the  Northern  world  ;  and,  that 
it  may  not  be  an  easy  ascent  for  mortals  or  for  giants,  fire 
is  mingled  with  the  substance  and  burns  along  all  its 
length :  and  that  is  the  red  of  the  bow.3  Bifrost  is  the 
best  of  bridges,4  and  will  remain  until  the  Last  Day ;  but, 
strong  though  it  be,  it  will  break  in  pieces  what  time  the 
sons  of  Muspell  (the  Fire),  who  have  crossed  the  great  river, 
come  riding  over  it.5  At  one  end  of  the  rainbow  stands 
Heimdal,  the  Memnon  of  Norse  mythology,  who,  at  the 
approach  of  any  danger,  rouses  the  gods  with  his  sounding 
horn.6  Bifrost  at  night  may  have  been  confounded  with 
the  Milky  Way ; 7  it  was  imagined  almost  conterminous 

'  Five  hundred  gates  and  forty  more,  I  ween, 
In  Valholl  are ; 

Eight  hundred  heroes  shall  from  each  gate  together  go, 
When  they  go  thence  the  wolf  to  fight.' 

1  But  on  the  meaning  of  these  words  see  Chap.  VI. 

2  See  Chap.  VI.  *  Edda  Snorra,  D.  15.  4  Grimnismal,  44. 

5  Edda  Suorra,  D.  13.     Lit.  '  who  have  crossed  the  great  rivers.'     What 
is  meant  is  the  great  earth-girding  river  of  which  I  have  spoken  so  often. 

6  Gjallar-Jiorni.      This  horn  must  originally,  I  think,  have  sounded  at 
sunrise  ;  while  the  sound  itself  is  the  thunder.     Heimdal  lives  at  the  hori- 
zon of  morning.    He  himself  is  the  morning  home  of  the  sun  (Home  Dale). 
Whether  the  Gjallar-horni  be  itself  the  sun  (like  Baldur's  Hriny-horni}  I 
leave  the  reader  to  determine  as  he  pleases. 

7  See  Chap.  VI. 


348  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

with  the  span  of  heaven's  arch,  and  must,  like  the  other 
Bridges  of  Death  spoken  of  in  the  sixth  chapter,  have 
been  thought  of  as  overbridging  the  Midgard  Sea. 

That  mighty  tide  which  was  for  the  Greek  a  '  shadowy 
sea,'  a  '  sea  calamitous,'  was  not  less  terrible  here  in  the 
North.  The  Norseman  was  at  home  upon  common  seas, 
but  this  was  no  earthly  one.  e  Bold  must  he  be,'  says  the 
Edda,  ( who  strives  to  pass  those  waters.' l  If  anyone 
should  be  journeying  toward  this  Sea  of  Death,  even  while 
he  was  still  on  Mannheimar  (man's  earth)  he  Would  become 
aware,  I  suppose,  of  entering  a  region  which  was  misty  and 
ghost-like  and  dangerous. 

The  Teuton  needed  not  suppose  himself  to  have  reached 
the  confines  of  the  habitable  world,  even  though  he  had 
strayed  far  from  his  village  community  and  the  protection 
of  his  friendly  gods.  If  the  more  or  less  known  recesses 
of  the  forest  had  their  terrors,  fearf  uller  still  to  the  fancy 
must  the  region  have  been  which  lay  quite  out  of  ken, 
farther  than  any  band  of  explorers  had  ever  reached. 
Wherefore  in  the  imaginary  world  of  the  Norseman  the 
scene  even  on  this  side  the  Sea  of  Death  grew  dim  and 
threatening ;  a  wintry  land  stretched  before  the  wanderer's 
steps.  These  regions  of  cold  lay  especially  toward  the  east 
and  the  north,  the  coldest  quarters.  To  the  eastward  of 
Midgard  stood  the  Iron  Wood  (JarnviSr),  a  gloomy  place 
with  leaves  and  trees  of  iron,  where  dullness  reigned. 
'  Here  sitteth  the  old  one ' — a  witch,  called  the  Iron  Witch, 
emblematic  of  death — '  and  reareth  the  wolfs  fell  kindred.' 2 
These  wolf- kin  are  a  race  of  witches  and  were-wolves. 

And  now  suppose  the  Iron  Wood  passed  and  the  sea- 
shore reached.  We  might  call  the  leafless  wood  an 
emblem  of  approaching  winter;  that  is,  of  late  autumn. 
Beyond  the  sea  is  full  winter,  a  land  of  perpetual  ice  and 
snow,  and  of  frosty  fog  hanging  over  the  ice,  with  all  the 
magic  and  all  the  sense  illusions  which  could  have  their 

1  Edda  Snorra,  D.  8.  2  Voluspd,  32. 


THE  TEUTON'S  WORLD.  349 

birth  in  such  a  misty  world.  Here  the  sun  never  shone 
when  he  was  climbing  heaven  in  the  morning  or  at  evening 
returning  earthward  to  rest,  any  more  than  he  shone  upon 
the  gloomy  Cimmerians'  land.  If  any  light  was  here  in 
Jotunheim,  it  must  come  from  Aurora  Borealis,  which  shed 
sometimes  a  fitful  gleam.  This  northern  light  was  in  the 
Eddaic  stories  imaged  as  a  girdle  of  fire,  a  '  far-flickering 
flame ' !  which  surrounded  Jotunheim,  and  served  it  as  a 
wall  to  keep  men  from  venturing  there.  Jotunheim  seems 
sometimes  as  if  it  only  existed  in  the  night  and  could  not 
be  visited  by  day ;  it  is  as  it  were  born  and  cradled  in 
gloom,  having  no  part  in  the  light  of  the  sun.  Wherefore 
when  a  messenger  is  sent  thither  from  Asgard  we  find  him 
speaking  thus  to  the  horse  who  is  to  carry  him  thither : — 

Dark  it  grows  without.     Time  I  deem  it  is 
To  fare  over  the  misty  ways. 
We  will  both  return,  or  that  all-powerful  Jo'tiin 
Shall  seize  us  both.2 

*  Is  it  safe  for  us  to  venture  further  ?  Scarcely,  seeing  we 
are  Ibut  mortal.  If  we  desire  to  journey  into  Jotunheimar 
we  must  attach  ourselves  to  the  company  of  a  god  and  go 
with  him  thither.  Thorr  is  the  one  who  is  continually 
making  these  journeys,  (  faring  eastward,'  as  the  Younger 
Edda;has  it,  'to  fight  trolls.'3  While  Odhiim  stays  in 
Asgar'd  and  keeps  guard  against  the  giants,  Thorr  the 
sort,  like  those  children  of  adventure  who  sally  forth  on 
.  their  viking- goings,  carries  the  war  into  the  enemies' 
country. 

The  following  is  a  history  typical  of  these  journeyings 
\   of  Thorr  to  Jotunheimar : — 

/  The  god  upon  this  occasion  set  out  with  the  intention 
*  of  discovering  a  certain  giant,  tltgarSloki,  who  was 
/  especially  powerful  and  especially  the  enemy  of  the  gods. 

In  truth  he  was  a  sort  of  king  of  the  under  world,  and 

> 
1  .Fiolsvinn^mal.  2  For  Skirnis,  10.  3  Edda  Snorra,  D.  42. 


350  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Thorr's  journey  to  his  hall  is  comparable  to  the  descent  of 
Heracles  to  the  realm  of  Hades.1  After  some  travel  the 
god  arrived  at  the  shore  of  a  wide  and  deep  sea.  On  the 
sea  stood  the  bark  of  the  ferryman,  the  Northern  Charon, 
Harbarft  by  name. 

Steer  hitherward  thy  hark  :          I  will  show  thee  the  strand. 
But  who  owns  the  skiff  that  by  the  shore  thou  rowest  ?  2 

Thorr  was,  on  this  occasion,  travelling  with  Loki  and 
two  mortals,  his  servants,  called  Thialfi  and  Boska.  They 
crossed  the  wide  deep  sea,  and  entered  a  boundless  forest. 
No  sooner  had  Thorr  and  his  comrades  thus  got  well  into 
Jotunheim  than  they  began  to  fall  victims  to  its  spells 
and  enchantments  ;  and  the  glamour  increased  the  farther 
they  went,  till  at  last  their  adventure  ended  only  in 
disastrous  defeat.  They  came  to  what  they  took  for  a 
hall,  with  wide  entrance,  having  one  small  chamber  at  the 
side ;  and  while  resting  they  were  disturbed  by  a  noise 
like  an  earthquake,  which  made  all  but  Thorr  run  into 
the  chamber  to  hide  themselves.  In  the  morning  an 
immense  man,  who  had  been  sleeping  on  the  ground  hard 
by,  and  whose  snoring  it  was  that  had  so  frightened  all, 
arose,  and  presently  lifted  up  that  which  they  had  fancied 
was  a  hall,  and  which  now  proved  to  be  his  glove.  Then 
Thorr  and  his  companions  and  the  giant,  who  was  named 
Skrymir,  continued  their  journey  together.  But  in  the 


1  This,  by  the  way,  is  the  only  one  among  Herakles'  labours  which  finds 
a  prominent  place  in  Homer. 

2  HarbarSslioiS,  7.     I  have  combined  this  incident  with  the  story  of  the 
Younger  Edda,  because  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Harbarft  of  the  Har- 
bar<ssfio'5  is  really  the  ferryman  across  the  wide  and  deep  sea  which  Thorr 
crossed  on  his  way  to  tltgarSloki  (Edda  Snorra,  D.  45).     This  ferryman 
will  not  bear  the  weight  of  living  men  in  his  boat.     This  is  why  Harbarfc 
refuses  Thorr,  and  why  the  ferryman  in  the  curious  fragment  the  Sinfjotlalok 
refuses  to  carry  Sigmund.     The  two  instances  are  exactly  parallel.     Thorr, 
it  is  to  be  noticed,  generally,  in  these  matters  of  crossing  the  Sea  of  Death 
or  of  going  over  the  Bridge  of  Souls,  shares  the  disabilities  of  mortals. 
The  twenty -ninth  verse  of  the  Gfrimniamdl  is  usually  explained  as  meaning1 
that  Thorr  may  not  cross  As-bru. 


THORR'S  FARINGS  TO  JOTUNHEIM.  351 

night  Thorr,  thinking  to  kill  Skr^mir,  hurled  against  the 
giant's  head  his  death-dealing  hammer,  Mjolnir,  the  force 
of  which  none,  it  was  thought,  could  resist.  Yet,  behold, 
Skr^mir  only  asked  if  a  leaf  had  fallen  upon  him  as  he 
slept.  A  second  time  the  god  raised  his  hammer,  and 
smote  the  giant  with  such  force  that  he  could  see  the 
weapon  sticking  in  his  forehead.  Thereupon  Skr^mir 
awoke  and  said,  '  What  is  it  ?  Did  an  acorn  fall  upon  my 
head?  How  is  it  with  you,  Thorr?'  Thorr  stept  quickly 
back  and  answered  that  he  had  just  awoken,  and  added 
that  it  was  midnight  and  there  were  still  many  hours  for 
sleep.  Presently  he  struck  a  third  time,  with  such  force 
that  the  hammer  sank  into  the  giant's  cheek  up  to  the 
handle.  Then  Skr^mir  rose  up  and  stroked  his  cheek, 
saying,  '  Are  there  birds  in  this  tree  ?  It  seems  to  me  as 
if  one  of  them  had  sent  some  moss  down  on  my  face.' 

Anon  Thorr  and  his  companions  came  to  the  city  of 
the  giant  t^tgar^loki,  in  whose  hall,  and  among  the 
company  of  giants,  feats  of  strength  were  performed,  to 
match  the  new  comers  against  the  men  of  that  place. 
First  Loki  vaunted  his  skill  in  eating,  and  was  matched 
against  Logi  (Fire).  A  trough  was  placed  between  them, 
and,  after  each  had  seemed  to  eat  voraciously,  they  met 
just  in  the  middle.  But  it  was  found  that  Loki  had  eaten 
the  flesh  only ;  whereas  Logi  had  devoured  the  bones  and 
the  wood  of  the  trough  as  well.  Then,  again,  Thialfi 
stood  to  run  a  race  with  anyone,  and  was  set  to  try 
his  speed  against  Hug  (Thought),  who,  in  three  courses, 
vanquished  him  utterly.  And  now  the  turn  came  to 
Thorr.  First  he  was  challenged  to  drain  a  horn,,  '  which,' 
said  tTtgaroloki,  ( a  strong  man  can  finish  in  a  draught, 
but  the  weakest  can  empty  in  three.'  Thorr  made  three 
pulls  at  the  beaker,  but  at  the  end  of  the  third  had 
scarcely  laid  bare  more  than  the  brim.  The  next  trial 
was  to  raise  a  cat  from  the  ground.  '  We  have  a  very 
trifling  game  here,'  said  the  giant,  'in  which  we  exercise 
none  but  children.  It  consists  in  merely  lifting  my  cat 


352  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

from  the  ground ;  nor  should  I  have  dared  to  mention  it 
to  thee,  Thorr,  but  that  I  have  already  seen  thou  art  not 
the  man  we  took  thee  for.'  As  he  finished  speaking  a 
large  grey  cat  leapt  upon  the  floor.  Thorr  advanced  and 
laid  his  hand  beneath  the  cat's  belly,  and  did  his  best  to 
lift  him  from  the  ground;  but  he  bent  his  back,  and, 
despite  all  Thorr 's  exertions,  had  but  one  foot  raised  up ; 
and  when  Thorr  saw  this  he  made  no  further  trial. 

( The  trial,'  said  the  giant,  '  has  turned  out  as  I  ex- 
pected. The  cat  is  biggish,  and  Thorr  is  short  and  small 
beside  our  men.'  Then  spake  Thorr :  '  Small  as  ye  call 
me,  let  anyone  come  near  and  wrestle  with  me  now  I  am 
in  wrath.'  tTtgardhloki  looked  round  at  the  benches  and 
answered,  f  I  see  no  man  in  here  who  would  not  esteem  it 
child's  play  to  wrestle  with  thee.  But  I  bethink  me,'  he 
continued,  £  there  is  the  old  woman  now  calling  me,  my 
nurse  Elli  (Age).  With  her  let  Thorr  wrestle  if  he  will.' 
Thereupon  came  an  old  dame  into  the  hall,  and  to  her 
tTtgardhloki  signified  that  she  was  to  match  herself  against 
Thorr.  We  will  not  lengthen  out  the  tale.  The  result  of 
the  contest  was  that  the  harder  Thorr  strove  the  firmer 
she  stood.  And  now  the  old  crone  began  to  make  her  set 
at  Thorr.  He  had  one  foot  loosened,  and  a  still  harder 
struggle  followed ;  but  it  did  not  last  long,  for  Thorr  was 
brought  down  on  one  knee.  .  .  . 

The  next  morning,  at  daybreak,  Thorr  arose  with  his 
following ;  they  dressed  and  prepared  to  go  their  ways. 
Then  came  tTtgardhloki  and  had  a  meal  set  before  them, 
in  which  was  no  lack  of  good  fare  to  eat  and  to  drink. 
And  when  they  had  done  their  meal  they  took  their  road 
homewards.  tTtgardhloki  accompanied  them  to  the  outside 
of  the  town ;  and,  at  parting,  he  asked  Thorr  whether  he 
was  satisfied  with  his  journey,  and  if  he  had  found  any- 
one more  mighty  than  himself.  Thorr  could  not  deny 
that  the  event  had  been  little  to  his  honour.  '  And  well  I 
know,'  he  said,  'that  you  will  hold  me  for  a  very  in- 
significant fellow,  at  which  I  am  ill  pleased.'  Then  spoke 


THOKE'S  TARINGS  TO  JOTUNHEIM.  353 

frtgardhloki :  '  I  will  tell  thee  the  truth  now  that  I  have 
got  thee  again  outside  our  city,  into  which,  so  long  as  I 
live  and  bear  rule  there,  thou  shalt  never  enter  again ; 
and  I  trow  that  thou  never  shouldst  have  entered  it  had  I 
known  thee  to  be  possessed  of  such  great  strength.  I 
deceived  thee  by  my  illusions ;  for  the  first  time  I 
saw  thee  was  in  the  wood ;  me  it  was  thou  mettest  there. 
Three  blows  thou  struckest  with  thy  hammer ;  the  first, 
the  lightest,  would  have  been  enough  to  bring  death 
had  it  reached  me.  Thou  sawest  by  my  hall  a  rocky 
mountain,  and  in  it  three  square  valleys,  of  which  one 
was  the  deepest.  These  were  the  marks  of  thy  hammer. 
It  was  the  mountain  which  I  placed  in  the  way  of  thy 
blow;  but  thou  didst  not  discover  it.  And  it  was  the 
same  in  the  contests  in  which  ye  measured  yourselves 
against  my  people.  The  first  was  that  in  which  Loki 
had  a  share.  He  was  right  hungry,  and  ate  well.  But 
he  whom  we  called  Logi  was  the  fire  itself,  and  he 
devoured  the  flesh  and  bowl  alike.  When  Thialfi  ran 
a  race  with  another,  that  was  my  thought,  and  it  was  not 
to  be  looked  for  that  Thialfi  should  match  him  in  speed. 
When  thou  drankest  out  of  the  horn,  and  it  seemed  to 
thee  so  difficult  to  empty,  a  wonder  was  seen  which  I 
should  not  have  deemed  possible.  The  other  end  of  the 
horn  stretched  out  to  the  sea:  that  thou  didst  not 
perceive ;  but  when  thou  comest  to  the  shore  thou  mayest 
see  what  a  drain  thou  hast  made  from  ifc.  And  that  shall 
men  call  the  ebb.'  He  continued,  'Not  less  wonderful 
and  mighty  a  feat  didst  thou  when  thou  wast  at  lifting 
of  the  cat ;  and,  to  speak  sooth,  we  were  all  in  a  fright 
when  we  saw  that  thou  hadst  raised  one  paw  from  the 
ground.  For  a  cat  it  was  not,  as  it  seemed  to  thee.  It 
was  the  Midgard  worm,  who  lies  encircling  all  lands; 
and  when  thou  didst  this  he  had  scarce  length  enough 
left  to  keep  head  and  tail  together  on  the  earth;  for 
thou  stretchedst  him  up  so  high  that  almost  thou  reachedst 
heaven.  A  great  wonder  it  was  at  the  wrestling  bout 

A  A 


354  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

which  them  hadst  with  Elli ;  but  no  one  was  nor  shall  be 
whom,  how  long  soever  he  live,  Elli  will  not  reach  and 
Age  not  bring  to  earth.  Now  that  we  are  at  parting  thou 
hast  the  truth ;  and  for  both  of  us  it  were  better  that  thou 
come  not  here  again.  For  again  I  shall  defend  my  castle 
with  my  deceptions,  and  thy  might  will  avail  nothing 
against  me.'  When  Thorr  heard  these  words  he  seized 
his  hammer  and  raised  it  on  high ;  but  when  he  would 
have  struck  he  could  see  tJtgardhloki  nowhere.  He  turned 
toward  the  city,  and  was  for  destroying  it ;  but  he  saw  a 
wide  and  beautiful  plain  before  him,  and  no  city. 

Thus  is  the  veil  lifted  for  us  for  a  moment,  so  that  we 
may  see  into  Giant  Land.  The  picture  held  up  before  us 
is  not  quite  of  the  making  of  primitive  belief.  As  we 
shall  see  in  another  chapter,  there  was,  in  this  story  of 
Thorr's  visit  to  tTtgardhloki,  once  a  serious  meaning,  which 
has  been  here  lost  sight  of;  and  the  whole  history  is 
converted  into  something  like  a  fairy  tale.  The  myths  of 
Scandinavia  were  beginning  to  seem  like  fairy  tales  in  the 
thirteenth  century — which  was  the  time  at  which  Snorri 
Sturlason  composed  his  Edda ;  and  while  their  old 
substance  is  retained  in  this  compilation  of  legends  they 
are  dressed  up  in  a  new  way  and  in  a  new  spirit.  Still 
the  picture  of  Giant  Land  which  we  have  been  looking  at 
is  one  which  had  been  handed  on  from  ancient  days. 
This  essential  characteristic  still  clings  to  the  place ;  it  is 
.a  land  of  mystery  and  magic. 

The  full  moon  near  its  setting,  gleaming  through  an 
icy  fog,  this  is  the  giant  Skr^mir,1  or  the  mountain  which 
Thorr  took  for  him.  In  its  face  we  still  see  the  three  deep 
gashes  which  Mjolnir  once  made.  How  completely  do  all 

1  I  have  little  doubt  that/the  incident  of  the  three  gashes  or  valleys  is 
meant  to  refer  to  the  face  of  the  moon.  Such  a  representation  would  be 
quite  in  the  spirit  of  mythology.  It  would  be  in  the  spirit  of  mythology 
too  that  Skrymir  should  have  been  fir^t  himself  the  moon,  and  that  after- 
wards in  this  story  the  moon  should  be  the  mountain  which  was  mistaken 
for  him.  Skrymir  is  thus  as  the  full  moon  a  relation  of  the  Gorgon.  The 
name  Skryndr  means  simply  a  monster  (cf.  skrimsl). 


THOKR'S  FARINGS  TO  JOTUNHEIM.  355 

Nature's  forces  seem  upou  the  side  of  the  giant  race—  fire, 
the  sea,  Jormungandr,  who  id  a  personification  of  the  sea ! . 

Thorr  is  not  always  so  unsuccessful  as  he  was  in 
this  adventure.  Indeed,  we  may  fairly  say  that  he  can 
conquer  all  giants  save  Iltgardliloki.  And  why  lie  cannot 
overcome  him  will  appear  in  the  next  chapter.  Here  is 
a  more  successful  expedition. 

In  revenge  for  that  disastrous  journey  to  tTtgardhloki, 
so  the  Younger  Edda  tells  us,1  Thorr  once  more  sallied 
forth  from  Midgard,  and  came,  at  dusk,  to  the  dwelling  of 
the  giant  H^mir,  and  persuaded  that  giant  to  go  out  a- 
fishing  with  him.  For  bait  he  wrung  off  the  head  of  a 
gigantic  bull,  and  this  he  fixed  upon  a  string,  and  let 
down  the  line.  The  object  of-  his  fishing  was  the  great 
Earth  Serpent.  Jormungandr  saw  the  bait  and  took  it, 
so  that  the  hook  became  firmly  fixed  in  his  jaw.  Thorr 
began  to  draw  up  the  prize,  while  Jormungandr  struggled 
so  violently  that  he  all  but  upset  the  boat.  And  now 
Thorr  exerted  .all  his  divine  strength,  and  pulled  so  hard 
that  his  feet  went  through  the  boat  and  reached  the 
bottom  of  the  sea.  Then  the  Sea  Serpent  lifted  up  his 
head  out  of  the  water  and  spouted  venom  at  Thorr. 
Thorr  now  raised  his  mallet  to  strike,  and  would,  perhaps, 
have  slain  the  enemy,  had  not  H^mir,  who  grew  afeard, 
cut  the  line  and  let  the  serpent  sink  again  into  the 
water. 

Or  take  this  story — a  rather  better  one — from  the 
Elder  Edda.2  The  giant  Thrymr  once  stole  the  hammer 
of  Thorr,  and  Loki  was  sent  to  find  where  he  had  hidden 
it.  It  had  been  buried  deep  in  the  ground,  and  Thrymr 
would  restore  it  only  on  condition  that  the  ^Esir  should 
give  him  the  beautiful  Freyja  to  wife.  But  at  such  a 


1 D.  48. 

2  prymskvifta,  or  Hamarsheimt.  prymr  is  a  being  of  the  same  nature 
as  Thorr,  as  his  name  means  Thunder.  Concerning  the  double  character 
frequently  given  to  a  natural  object  see  p.  130.  Thrymr  may,  perhaps,  be 
an  older  thunder  god  than  Thorr. 

A  A  2 


356  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

proposal  the  goddess  waxed  wroth,  and  would  in  no  wise 
consent  to  it.  So  the  gods  took  counsel,  and,  by  the 
advice  of  Heimdalr,  one  of  the  -ZEsir,  they  devised  a  plan 
by  which  the  giant  could  be  cheated.  The  thunder  god 
dressed  himself  in  Freyja's  weeds,  he  adorned  himself 
with  her  necklace — the  famed  Brisinga  necklace-  -he  let 
from  his  side  keys  rattle,  and  set  a  comely  coif  upon  his 
head.1  Then  he  went  to  Jotunheim  as  though  he  were 
the  bride ;  Loki  went  with  him  as  his  serving  maid.  The 
god  could  scarcely  avoid  raising  some  suspicions  by  his 
unwomanly  behaviour;  he  alone  devoured  an  ox,  eight 
salmon,  and  all  the  sweetmeats  women  love,  and  he  drank 
three  salds  of  mead.  Thrymr  exclaimed  with  wonder 2 — 

*  Who  ever  a  bride  saw  sup  so  greedily  ? 
Never  a  bride  saw  I  sup  so  greedily, 

Nor  a  maid  drink  such  measures  of  mead.' 

Sat  the  all-cunning  serving  maid  by, 
Ready  her  answer  to  the  giant  to  give. 

*  Nought  has  Freyja  eaten  for  eight  nights, 
So  eager  was  she  for  Jotunheim.' 

'Neath  the  linen  hood  he  looked,  a  kiss  craving ; 
But  sprang  back  in  terror  across  the  hall. 
'  How  fearfully  flaming  are  Freyja's  eyes  ! 
Their  glance  burneth  like  a  brand ! ' 

There  sat  the  all-cunning  serving  maid  by, 
Beady  with  words  the  giant  to  answer. 
1  For  eight  nights  she  did  not  of  sleep  enjoy, 
So  eager  was  she  for  Jotunheim.' 

In  stepped  the  giant's  fearful  sister ; 
For  a  bridejp  gift  she  dared  to  ask. 
'  Give  me  from  thy  hand  red  rings, 
If  thou  wilt  gain  my  love, 
My  love  and  favour.' 

i  Then  said  Heimdalr,  of  jEsir  the  brightest, 

'  Woman's  weeds  on  Thorr  let  us  lay ; 

Let  by  his  side  keys  rattle ; 

And  with  a  comely  coif  his  head  adorn.' — prymskv.  16, 17. 
*  £rymskv.  25  sqq. 


THE  GIANT  RACE.  357 

Then  spake  Thrymr,  the  giants'  prince : 
*  The  hammer  bear  in,  the  bride  to  consecrate ; 
Lay  Mjolnir  on  the  maiden's  knee 
And  unite  us  mutually  in  marriage  bonds/ 

Laughed  Hldrrifti's  l  heart  in  his  breast 
When  the  fierce-hearted  his  hammer  knew. 
Thrymr  first  slew  be,  the  thursar's  lord, 
And  the  race  of  jotuns  all  destroyed. 

He  slew  the  ancient  jotun  sister, 
Who  for  a  bride  gift  had  dared  to  ask ; 
Hard  blows  she  got  instead  of  skillings, 
And  the  hammer's  weight  in  place  of  rings. 

Finally,  in  another  poem  of  the  Elder  Edda,  we  find 
Thorr  engaging  Alvis  (All- wise),  of  the  race  of  the  thursar,2 
in  a  conversation  upon  the  names  which  different  natural 
objects  bear  among  men,  among  gods  (^Esir  and  Vanir), 
among  giants,  and  among  elvos,  so  that  he  guilefully  keeps 
him  above  the  earth  until  after  sunrise,  where  it  is  not 
possible  for  a  dwarf  or  a  jotun  to  be  and  live.  So  Alvis 
bursts  asunder.3 

These  stories  are  somewhat  childish,  and  do  not  bear 
all  the  characteristics  of  early  belief;  but  we  can  look 
through  the  outer  covering  to  something  more  serious 
within.  How  clearly,  for  instance,  in  this  last  story  are 
Alvis  and  his  fellows  shown  to  be  beings  of  darkness,  and 
therefore  their  land  to  be  a  land  of  gloom.  This  aspect  of 
Jotunheim  and  of  the  giant  race  would  be  more  apparent 
if  we  were  further  to  take  into  consideration  all  the  stories 
which  connect  Jotunheim  with  the  Land  of  Shades.  But 
this  is  the  subject  for  another  chapter. 

Let  it  suffice  us  in  this  to  have  gained  some  picture 
of  the  actual  world  of  the  Teuton.  We  will  forbear,  as 
yet,  to  pry  into  his  land  of  death ;  and  we  will  forbear, 

1  Thorr's. 

2  Giant  does  not  translate  thurs.     Most  of  the  thursar  were  giants,  as 
opposed  to  the  dvergar,  dwarfs ;  but  this  Alvis  is  spoken  of  as  a  dwarf. 

8  Alvissmal. 


358  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

likewise,  to  pry  into  the  Future  of  the  Teuton's  world. 
What  we  have  been  looking  at  hitherto  has  been  the  pre- 
sent world,  the  actual  living  nature,  in  the  light  in  which 
the  German  saw  it  from  beneath  the  dark  shadow  of  his 
forest.  Is  not  this  view  likely  to  have  had  its  influence 
upon  his  future  creed,  even  at  a  time  when  he  had  nomi- 
nally put  off  Odhinn  (put  off  the  6  old  man,'  one-eyed, 
white-bearded,  with  his  cap  of  concealment)  and  put  on 
Christ?  In  every  feature  of  his  belief,  old  or  new,  is 
reflected  the  life  of  the  mark — its  gloom,  its  wind,  its 
uncertainty  concerning  all  beyond.  In  every  tone  which 
speaks  his  creed  we  hear  the  echo  of  the  words  of  the 
thane  comparing  to  the  sparrow  flying  in  for  a  moment 
from  the  storm  the  brief  life  of  man.  Life  was  to  the 
Teuton  in  very  truth  the  'meeting-place  between  two 
eternities,' l  both  unknown. 

We  have,  fortunately  for  ourselves,  the  means  of  testing 
further  the  creed  of  the  Teuton  race.  We  can  set  beside 
the  stories  of  the  Edda,  stories  professedly  heathen 
indeed,  but  breathed  upon  and  partly  withered  by  the 
breath  of  unbelief,  born  at  a  late  time  when  the  Christian 
spirit  had  been  too  long  familiar  to  the  world  to  allow 
the  heathen  doctrines  to  be  any  longer  seriously  held, 
another  story  of  a  much  earlier  date,  which,  though  pro- 
fessedly Christian  in  tone,  has  about  it  far  more  of  the 
ancient  spirit  of  Teutonism.  The  Eddas  give  us  more  of 
the  actual  facts  of  Northern  belief ;  but  Beowulf  gives  us 
the  spirit  of  the  belief.  This  poem,  in  the  form  in  which 
it  now  exists,  belongs  to  the  eighth  century.  But  the  tale 
was  doubtless  brought,  in  some  shape  or  other,  to  our  shores 
by  early  invaders  from  Jutland  or  Denmark,  or  from  the 
south  of  Sweden.  It  has  no  direct  connection  with  the 
English  race ;  it  recounts  the  deeds  of  a  hero  of  Gothland, 
in  South  Sweden,  and  of  a  King  of  Denmark.  Doubtless 
it  is  only  one  of  many  such  poems,  which  may  have  been 

1  Carlyle. 


BEOWULF.  359 

sung  by  gleemen  in  the  brilliant  court  of  Offa,  or  even 
have  cheered  the  sad  heart  of  Eadwine  when  he  ate  an 
exile's  food  at  the  board  of  King  Eedwald.  Other  poems 
would  tell  of  Hengist  and"  Horsa,  or  of  .ZElli  and  Cissa, 
and  such-like  heroes,  more  genuinely  English. 

Even  in  Beowulf,  a  Christian  poem,  written  for  men 
who  were  not  unacquainted  with  the  Latin  civilisation  of 
their  times,  we  must  make  allowance  for  the  changed 
condition  of  men's  lives  between  the  old  prehistoric 
German  days  and  these  more  modern  Christian  ones. 
The  fear  of  solitude,,  or  perhaps  I  had  better  say  the  sense 
of  solitude,  which  had  become  ingrained  in  the  Teuton 
inind  by  centuries  of  forest  life,  did  not  at  once  fade  away 
when  the  Germans  had  advanced  a  little  in  civilisation  ; 
probably  at  the  first  it  increased  somewhat.  There  was 
in  old  days  a  holiness  as  well  as  a  terror  about  the 
woody  groves,  for  Odhinn  and  his  fellow  gods  inhabited 
there ;  only  round  the  extreme  outskirts  of  the  mark  (the 
Teuton's  world)  hovered  the  giants  and  evil  spirits.  And 
this  notion  was  expressed  in  the  Norse  religion  by  placing 
the  jotuns  far  away  beyond  the  Midgard  Sea.  But  when 
the  Msir  were  expelled  by  Christianity  and  the  sacred 
groves  cut  down ;  when  the  old  village  Enclosure  was  re- 
placed by  the  walled  Town  ; l  when  men  no  longer  dwelt 
differ  eti  ac  diver  si,  but  congregated  in  strong  places — then 
an  added  horror  attached  to  the  outlands,  to  the  moors 
and  fells,  to  their  drear  expanses,  their  dark  valleys  and 
their  misty,  stagnant  pools. 

The  outland  men,  the  dwellers  on  the  heaths  (heathens2), 
were  henceforward  regarded  as  the  worshippers  of  fiends ; 
Odhinn  was  driven  forth  and  became  the  Wild  Huntsman, 
or  else  Satan  himself,  the  Prince  of  the  Air.3  The  giants 

1  The  different  meanings  of  the  German  Zaun  and  English  town,  both 
etymologically  the  same,  are  very  expressive  of  the  change  from  German  to 
Englishlife,  as  experienced  by  our  forefathers. 

2  The  analogy  is  shown  still  more  strongly  in  the  German  Heide. 

8  See  Chap.  X.     The  'Prince  of  the  Air,'  which  is   one  of  the   Biblical 
names  for  Satan,  was  that  most  often  made  use  of  in  Middle  Age  descrip- 


360  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

were  transformed  into  wild  woodmen,1  or  became  the  man- 
eating  ogres  of  our  nursery  stories.  This  is  the  sort  of 
world  described  to  us  in  the  poem  of  Beowulf.  For  here 
we  have  not  to  do  with  a  mere  nursery  or  popular  tale,  but 
with  a  stern  reality.  One  needs  to  read  Beowulf  through 
to  see  how  thoroughly  realised  is  the  horror  which  hangs 
over  the  solitudes  of  the  world.  But,  to  give  some  idea  of 
this,  let  the  following  short  summary  of  the  earlier  part  of 
the  poem  suffice  us. 

The  poem  of  Beowulf — after  some  genealogical  stuff 
such  as  these  bards,  but  not  we,  delight  in — opens  with 
a  certain  Hrothgar,  King  of  the  Danes,  who  has  built 
him  a  house — so  famous  a  palace  that  the  report  of  it  has 
gone  into  all  lands.  It  is  called  Heort,  which  is  Hart. 
We  hear  of  gold  plates  adorning  it.  These  were  days 
when  the  plunder  to  be  got  from  the  Eomans  of  civilised 
lands  was  almost  unlimited,  and  we  have  proof  that  the 
barbarians  converted  the  wealth  which  they  acquired  to 
the  coarsest  uses ;  so  the  story  of  a  house  adorned  with 
gold  plates  may  not  be  altogether  fabulous.  Hrothgar 
had  prepared  Heort  for  himself  and  his  thanes  ;  and  at 
night  in  the  '  beer  hall '  they  held  high  revel,  and  listened 
to  the  gleeman's  song,  which  told  the  stories  of  the  gods' 
doings  in  ancient  days,  and  '  how  the  All-powerful  had 
framed  the  earth  plain  in  its  beauty,  which  the  water 
girds  round,  and  set  in  pride  of  victory  the  sun  and  moon 
as  beacons  to  light  the  dwellers  on  land.'  But  far  away 
from  all  this  joy  and  revelry,  deep  in  the  stagnant  pools, 
or  among  the  windy  moors,  dwelt  a  terrible  and  super- 
natural being,  named  Grendel.  He  brooked  not  to  hear 
what  was  going  on  in  the  house  of  Hrothgar,  for  he  was 
the  foe  of  men. 


tions  of  the  Devil.     It  is  evidently  very  appropriate  to  a  wind  god  who  has 
turned  fiend. 

1  The    Waldmwnn  or  Wilde  Mann  was  another  popular  character  of 
mediaeval  popular  lore.     We  see  him  upon  the  arms  of  Brunswick. 


GRENDEL.  361 

Grueful  and  grim  this  stranger  called  Grendel, 
This  haunter  of  marshes,  holder  of  moors. 
In  the  Fifel-race'  dwelling,  the  fen  and  the  fastness, 
The  wretched  one  guarded  his  home  for  awhile ; 
Since  by  the  Creator  his  doom  had  been  spoken. 

Thence  he  departed  at  coming  of  nightfall 

To  visit  the  house-place  and  see  how  the  Ring  Danes 

After  their  beer  bout  had  ordered  it. 

On  the  floor  found  he  of  ethelings  a  throng 

Full-feasted  and  sleeping.     Care  heeded  they  never, 

No  darkness  of  soul  nor  sorrow  of  men. 

Grim  now  and  greedy,  the  fiend  was  soon  ready ; 

Savage  and  fierce,  from  sleep  up  he  snatched  then 

Of  those  thanes  thirty,  and  thence  eft  departed. 

From  that  time  Grendel  waged  wicked  war  against 
Hrothgar  and  all  his  house.  It  was  the  old  war  of  dark- 
ness against  light — the  darkness  of  rnisty  moors  against 
the  civilisation  of  those  who  dwelt  in  houses  ;  of  heathens 
— only  that  this  word  got  afterwards  a  special  significance 
• — against  town  men.  Or  it  was  the  war  of  the  gods  of 
German  mythology  against  the  dwellers-  in  that  savage 
far-off  land  across  the  ocean,  Jotunheim.  Here  the  race 
of  monsters,  the  Fifel  Brood,  seemed  like  to  gain  the  vic- 
tory. Hrothgar  himself  indeed,  as  the  Lord's  anointed, 
Grendel  could  not  touch;  but  the  king  and  his  men  were 
driven,  out  of  Heort,  which,  in  place  of  its  song  and  feast- 
ing, was  given  up  to  darkness  and  to  Grendel.  Nor  would 
this  monster  accept  any  truce  with  the  Danes  :  but  still 
like  a  death  shadow  he  roamed  over  the  fens,  and  plotted 
against  the  lives  of  warriors  and  youths. 

The  report  of  this  was  brought  to  Beowulf,  the  brother 
of  Higelac,  king  of  the  Geatas,  or  Goths.  The  heroes  of 
these  stories  are  rarely  at  the  outset  kings  themselves,  for 
it  was  the  recognised  duty  of  kings  to  stay  at  home  among 
their  own  peoples  ;  but  the  hero,  true  precursor  of  the 
knight  errant,  must  first  wander  abroad  in  search  of  ad- 
ventures ;  and  very  often  he  won  a  kingdom  by  his  sword. 


3C2  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

This  was  both  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  Norsemen 
and  the  more  warlike  among  the  Germans.  They  could 
not  all,  it  is  true,  find  monsters  and  dragons  to  slay,  but 
as  a  substitute  they  contented  themselves  with  going  on 
viking — that  is  to  say,  upon  a  pirate  voyage.  Beowulf, 
who  had  the  fortune  to  live  in  quite  prehistoric  days, 
when  '  eotens,  elves,  orkens,  and  such  giants  '  (as  Grendel) 
were  still  on  earth,  needed  only  to  sail  from  Gothland  to 
Denmark.  So  he  made  ready  a  good  ship,  and  set  out 
upon  the  '  swan's  path ' — the  sea — to  seek  the  good  King 
Hrothgar.  The  Scylding's  (Hrothgar's)  warder,  who  kept 
the  cliff,  saw  from  the  wall  the  gleam  of  arms  upon  the 
vessel's  bulwarks,  and  rode  down  to  the  sea  to  meet  the 
warriors  ere  they  landed,  brandishing  his  spear  in  his 
hand.  'What  armour-bearing  men  are  ye,  in  byrnies 
clad,  who  thus  come  with  your  foaming  keel  over  the 
water-ways,  over  the  sea-deeps  hither  ?  There  at  Land's 
End  have  I  ever  held  seaward,  that  no  foes  might  come 
with  ship  array  to  do  us  hurt/  he  cried.  And  he  was 
answered,  *  We  are  of  race  Goths,  Higelac's  hearth  friends. 
We  have  come  in  friendship  to  seek  thy  lord  and  to  de- 
fend him.  For  soothly  we  have  heard  say  that  among  the 
Scyldings  some  wretch,  I  know  not  who,  in  the  dark  soweth 
with  terror  unknown  malice  and  harm  and  havoc.  And 
I  may,  in  the  depth  of  rny  mind,  give  Hrothgar  counsel 
how  he  should  in  wisdom  overcome  the  foe.'  • 

Then  Beowulf  was  allowed  to  proceed.  He  rode  into 
the  town ;  the  men  wondered  at  his  kingly  bearing,  and 
the  greatness  of  his  followers,  and  Hrothgar  sent  to  ask 
why  he  came,  whether  in  peace  or  war.  Great  joy  pre- 
vailed in  Hrothgar's  house  when  Beowulf  disclosed  his 
intention  of  himself  meeting  the  foe  face  to  face,  and  once 
more  the  sound  of  feasting  was  heard  in  the  deserted 
palace ;  the  Queen  Waltheow  bare  round  the  drinking  cup 
to  the  hero,  and  pledged  him.  At  last  night  fell. 
After  that  darkening  night  over  all, 
Men's  shadow-covering,  advancing  came, 


BEOWULF'S  FIGHT  WITH  GKENDEL.  363 

and  Hrothgar  knew  the  signal  for  retiring  from  the 
haunted  place,  which  was  thus  left  to  the  Goths  and 
their  leader.  As  for  Beowulf,  he  had  determined  that  he 
would  trust  only  to  his  own  strength  of  arm,  not  to  byrnie 
or  falchion — indeed,  Grendel  was  impervious  to  weapons — 
and  he  prepared  for  the  death  struggle  in  a  speech  just  in 
the  character  of  all  the  poetry  of  this  epoch.  '  I  ween 
that  he  intends,  should  he  prevail,  to  devour  in  safety  the 
people  of  the  Goths,  as  he  has  often  done  the  Danes. 
Thou  wilt  have  no  need  to  bury  me,  for  if  I  get  my  death 
he  will  have  eaten  me  all  dashed  with  blood  :  he  will  bear 
away  my  gory  corpse  ;  he  will  taste  me,  the  night  stalker 
will  devour  me  without  mercy :  he  will  place  my  burial 
mound  upon  the  heath :  thou  wilt  have  no  thought  of 
burning  my  body.  Send  to  Higelac,  if  I  fall,  that  best 
of  mail  shirts  which  guards  my  breast,  the  choicest  of 
doublets ;  'tis  Hrsedla's  bequest  and  Weland's  work.' 

The  finest  passages,  those  wherein  the  poet  seems 
touched  by  the  strongest  inspiration,  are  always  they 
which  paint  the  gloom  and  horror  resting  over  Grendel 
and  all  his  actions:  showing  how  the  darkness  and 
mystery  of  the  world  about  them  laid  hold  on  the  imagina- 
tions of  these  Northern  seers.  The  author  of  Beowulf 
never  tires  of  presenting  and  re-presenting  the  image  of 
this  shadowy  being  and  of  the  places  wherein  he  dwells. 
So  here,  so  soon  as  night  has  come,  the  note  of  revelry  is 
changed  to  one  of  grim  expectation  or  of  horror. 

Then  from  the  moor  came,  the  misty  hills  under, 

Grendel  stalking  ;  God's  anger  he  bare  ; 

Meant  the  dread  enemy  some  one  of  man's  kin 

Here  to  entangle  within  the  high  hall. 

He  went  'neath  the  welkin  along,  till  the  guest  house, 

Man's  golden  seat,  he  recognised  well, 

With  the  plates  that  adorned  it.     Not  now  for  the  first  time 

Sought  the  destroyer  Hrothgar's  homestead ; 

Yet  never  in  life  save  now,  after  nor  earlier, 

Hardier  men  among  hall  thanes  he  found. 

To  the  house  door  then  the  monster  came  prowling, 


364  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

The  house  reft  of  joys  ;  soon  flew  the  door  wide 

And  wrought  iron  burst  'neath  the  strength  of  his  hand. 

Sleeping  together  full  many  a  warrior, 

Peacefully  sleeping  upon  the  hall  floor, 

Beheld  he  the  kinsmen  :  his  heart  laughed  within  him, 

For  the  foul  fiend  was  minded  before  break  of  day 

The  soul  from  the  body  of  each  one  to  sever, 

And  hope  of  full  feasting  on  his  spirit  there  fell. 

Then  straightway  asleep  he  seized  one  of  the  warriors, 

Bit  deep  in  his  body  and  drank  of  his  blood, 

And  the  flesh  tore  in  fragments,  in  small  morsels  swallowed, 

Till  all  was  devoured  to  the  feet  and  the  hands. 

Then  stepping  up  nearer,  he  took  at  his  resting 
The  mighty-souled  warrior,  Beowulf,  there  : 
But  he  stretching  forward,  on  his  elbow  half  rising, 
Seized  all  on  a  sudden  the  ill-minded  foe. 
Full  soon  then  discovered  this  keeper  of  crimes 
He  never  had  met  in  the  mid-earth's  wide  regions 
Among  strangers  a  hero  so  strong  in  his  hand-gripe. 
And  now  he  is  minded  to  flee  to  his  cavern 
To  seek  out  his  devil's  crew.  .  .  . 

....  But  Higelac's  kinsman 
Remembered  his  evening  speech  :  up  he  stood 
And  tightened  his  clutch.  .  .  . 

The  liall  echoed  with  the  shrieks  of  the  wretch.  So 
fiercely  they  strove  that  it  was  a  wonder  the  house  did 
not  fall,  though  it  was  held  firm  with  iron  bands.  Over 
the  North  Danes  crept  a  ghastly  horror  when  they  heard 
the  cries  of  this  hell's  captive,  and  many  of  Beowulf's 
earls  drew  their  swords,  but  no  steel  had  power  over 
Grendel's  life.  And  still  the  Goth  held  his  enemy  by  the 
hand,  tearing  his  arm :  at  last  the  sinews  started  in  his 
shoulder,  which  opened  a  gaping  wound ;  the  flesh  burst. 

To  Beowulf  now  was  the  fight's  fury  given. 
Death-sick  flies  Grendel  beneath  the  fen-banks, 
Seeking  his  joyless  home  ;  well  must  he  know 
That  of  his  life's  days  the  tale  is  o'ertold. 


GKENDEL'S  DEATH.  365 

What  were  the  rejoicings  among  the  Ring  Danes  and 
in  the  house  of  Hrothgar  we  may  partly  picture.  '  I  have 
been  told/  says  the  bard,  'that  on  the  morrow  many  a 
warrior  came  from  far  and  near  to  that  gift  hall.  The 
clan-heads  came  over  wide  ways  to  see  that  wonder — the 
traces  which  the  enemy  had  left  behind.  GrendeFs  death 
seemed  not  doubtful  to  any  who  saw  the  track  of  the 
miserable  one,  and  how  heavy-hearted,  conquered,  death- 
doomed,  banished,  he  bare  his  death  traces  to  the  Nicker's 
Mere.  There  the  water  bubbled  wtth  blood,  the  waves 
surged  and  mingled  with  the  hot  clotted  gore — after  the 
outcast  had  rendered  up  his  life,  his  heathen  soul,  in  the 
fenny  haunt.  Joyfully  and  proudly  old  and  young  turned 
back  from  the  pool  and  rode  home.  They  sang  the 
praises  of  Beowulf  and  of  their  good  king  Hrothgar.  At 
times  the  young  men  ran*  races  on  their  well-trained 
steeds ;  at  another  time  some  old  bard  would  sing  either 
in  Beowulf's  honour,  or  of  deeds  of  prowess  done  long  ago, 
of  Sigmund  the  Wselsing,  and  how  the  ring  hoard  was 
guarded  by  the  wondrous  worm. 

6  Hrothgar  went  into  the  hall,  and,  standing  on  the  dais, 
surveyed  the  vaulted  roof  adorned  with  gold,  where  hung 
Grendel's  hand.  Then  he  spake  :  "  For  this  sight  to  the 
Almighty  thanks  be  given :  ever  can  God,  the  Shield  of 
Honour,  work  wonder  after  wonder.  Not  long  ago  I 
never  guessed  that  though  my  best  of  houses  stood  stained 
with  gore  any  revenge  would  be  mine.  Now  this  hero 
hath,  through  God's  grace,  done  a  deed  which  with  all  our 
wisdom  we  could  not  contrive.  Henceforward,  Beowulf, 
best  of  men,  I  will  cherish  thee  in  my  heart  like  a  son. 
Nor  shalt  thou  have  any  want  which  it  is  in  my  power  to 
satisfy.  For  to  deeds  of  less  prowess  I  have  given  great 
rewards  and  honour  at  my  hearth."  Then  was  Heort 
cleansed  and  adorned  once  more  by  human  hands,  and 
many  men  and  women  set  to  work  upon  the  guest  hall. 
For  the  bright  place  was  shaken  in  the  wall  and  door ; 
only  the  roof  had  remained  uninjured.  Now  wonders  of 


366  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

gold-varied  webs  shone  along  the  walls.  And  the  son  of 
Healfdene  gave  to  Beowulf  a  golden  banner  as  a  sign  of 
victory,  and  a  sword  of  great  price  was  borne  to  the  hero, 
....  a  helmet,  and  eight  steeds,  on  one  of  which  lay  a 
saddle  of  cunning  work.  And  beside,  the  lord  of  warriors 
(Hrothgar)  gave  a  token  to  each  of  those  who  had  travelled 
the  sea  road  with  Beowulf.' 

All,  however,  was  not  ended  with  Grendel's  race.  It 
was  soon  seen  that  an  avenger  had  survived  the  foe — 
Grendel's  mother.  She  came  as  her  son  had  been  wont  to 
come,  when  the  thanes  slumbered  after  their  beer-drinking. 
Wrathful  and  ravenous,  she  burst  into  Heort,  where  the 
Ring  Danes  lay  asleep.  There  was  soon  a  terror  among 
them,  but  less  than  before.  They  seized  their  armour  and 
sharp  swords,  but  she  being  discovered  hastened  to  get 
back.  She  hurried  back  to  her  pool  one  of  the  ethelings, 
the  best  beloved  of  Hrothgar's  warriors.  Beowulf  was  not 
there,  for  another  dwelling  had  been  assigned  to  him. 
The  witch  took  the  well-known  hand  of  Grendel,  all  bloody 
as  it  was.  Hrothgar  was  in  a  fierce  mood  when  he  heard 
that  his  chief  thane  was  slain,  and  quickly  was  Beowulf 
sent  for.  Beowulf  greeted  the  aged  king,  who  spoke : 
'  Ask  not  of  my  welfare.  Sorrow  is  renewed  for  the  Danes 
people.  j33schere  is  dead,  who  knew  my  secrets,  my 
counsellor,  my  close  comrade  when  we  guarded  our  heads 
in  battle,  in  the  crush  of  hosts.  A  wandering  fiend  has 
been  his  undoer  here  in  Heort.  I  know  not  whether  the 
ghoul  has  returned  again.  She  has  avenged  the  quarrel 
in  which  thou  slewest  Grendel  the  other  night.'  And 
he,  described  the  two  fiends  and  the  place  where  they 
dwelt. 

A  father  they  know  not.  nor  if  among  ghosts 
Any  spirit  before  was  created.     And  secret 
The  land  they  inhabit,  dark  wolf-haunted  ways 
Of  the  windy  hill-side  by  the  treacherous  tarn, 
Or  where  covered  up  in  its  mist  the  hill  stream 
Downward  flows. 


FIGHT  WITH  THE  MOTHER   OF   GBENDEL.  367 

To  this  pool  Beowulf  now  went,  and  the  king  and 
many  warriors  with  him.  The  track  of  the  destroyer  was 
soon  found ;  through  forest  glades  and  across  the  gloomy 
moor  they  followed  it ;  into  deep  gorges,  by  steep  head- 
lands, led  on  the  strait  and  lonely  road,  by  the  homes  of 
the  nickers.  Then  Hrothgar  went  forward,  accompanied 
by  a  few,  until  they  came  to  a  joyless  wood  where  trees 
leaned  over  the  hoar  rock,  and  beneath  stood  water  troubled 
and  bloody.  Great  was  their  grief  when  near  it  they 
found  the  head  of  .ZEschere.  The  well  bubbled  red  :  their 
horns  sounded  a  funeral  strain.  Along  this  tank's  edge 
they  saw  many  creatures  of  the  worm  kind,  sea  dragons 
creeping  along  the  deep,  and  nickers  lying  in  the  ness. 
Beowulf  did  on  him  his  warrior's  weeds,  a  twisted  mail- 
shirt,  and  helmet  begirt  with  many  rings,  and  his  biting 
sword,  which  was  named  Hrunting.  Then  he  plunged  in, 
and  the  whelming  waters  passed  over  his  head.  It  was 
some  time  ere  he  could  discern  what  lay  at  the  bottom, 
but  soon  the  old  hag,  who  for  fifty  years  had  had  her 
home  there,  discovered  that  some  one  from  the  world 
above  was  exploring  the  strange  abode.  She  grappled 
with  Beowulf,  seizing  him  in  her  devilish  grip,  but  she  did 
not  hurt  him  by  that,  for  the  mail  shirt  protected  his  body 
against  her  hateful  fingers ;  next  she  dragged  the  Ring 
Prince  into  her  den,  yet  could  he  not,  despite  his  rage, 
wield  his  sword.  At  last  he  perceived  he  was  in  a  hall, 
where  the  water  could  not  harm  him  nor  the  fatal  embrace 
of  the  witch,  and  by  the  light  of  a  distant  fire  he  saw  the 
old  were- wolf.  He  struck  a  ringing  blow  upon  her  head, 
but  the  steel  would  not  hurt  her.  Then  the  warrior,  the 
Goths'  lord,  threw  away  his  weapon  and  seized  Grendel's 
mother,  and  shook  her  so  that  she  sank  down.  But  she, 
paying  him  back,  griped  his  hand,  and  he,  over-reaching 
himself,  likewise  fell  down.  Grendel's  mother  leaped 
upon  him  and  drew  a  knife,  seeking  to  find  a  way  under 
his  corselet,  but  that  held  firm,  or  he  would  have  perished. 

At  last  Beowulf  saw  among  the  rubbish  a  victorious 


368  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

blade,  an  old  sword  of  giant  days,  with,  keenest  edge. 
The  Scylding's  champion  seized  the  hilt,  and  despairing  of 
his  life  he  drew  the  blade  and  struck  fiercely  at  her  neck. 
It  broke  the  bone-joints  and  passed  through  her  body. 
She  sank  upon  the  floor.  And  he,  rejoicing  in  his  deed, 
sprang  up ;  a  light  stole  down  into  the  water  as  when  the 
lamp  of  heaven  mildly  shines,  and  he  saw  throughout  the 
house.  Then  he  perceived  Grendel's  hated  body  lying  there, 
and  swinging  his  sword  around  Beowulf  cut  off  his  head. 

When  the  wise  men,  who  with  Hrothgar  were  watching 
the  pool  from  above,  saw  the  water  all  dabbled  and  stained 
with  blood,  they  made  no  doubt  but  that  the  old  she-wolf 
had  destroyed  the  noble  earl.  Then  came  on  noon-day,  and 
the  Scyldings  grew  sick  of  heart;  the  king  of  men  turned 
to  go  homeward ;  but  still  they  gazed  upon  the  lake, 
longing  for  their  lord  to  appear.  And  down  below,  behold  ! 
in  the  hot  blood  of  the  giant  all  the  sword  had  melted 
away,  like  ice  when  the  Father  (He  who  hath  power  over 
times  and  seasons — the  true  God)  looseneth  the  bond  of 
frost  and  unwindeth  the  ropes  which  bind  the  waves. 
Then  Beowulf  dived  up  through  the  water :  soon  he  was 
at  the  surface.  And  when  Grendel  died,  the  turbid  waves, 
the  vast  and  gloomy  tracts,  grew  calm  and  bright. 

So,  too,  after  her  centuries  of  gloom,  the  mild  light  of 
Christianity  shone  down  into  the  deep  waters  of  German 
thought,  and  in  lime  their  tracts  too  grew  calm  and  bright. 
But  this  was  not  yet.  We  have  still,  in  another  chapter, 
to  try  and  see  something  of  how  the  dark  shadow  which, 
was  an  inheritance  of  so  many  ages  hung  over  the  creed 
of  mediaeval  Christendom.  By  virtue  of  this  inheritance 
mediaeval  Catholicism  entered  into  the  line  of  descent  from, 
the  creeds  of  heathen  Germany. 

§  2.  The  Gods  of  the  Homestead. 

We  have  gained  some  insight  into  one  side  of  Teutonic 
belief;  and  that  the  most  important  side.  We  have  been 


THE  CEEED   OF  FAEM  AND  HOMESTEAD. 

standing  with  the  warrior,  who  had  his  home  in  the  mark 
and  who  spent  his  time  in  hunting  there.  His  world  and 
his  gods  are  those  who  lie  beyond  the  familiar  ground  of 
the  village  farm  ;  still  farther  away,  as  the  half-known 
changes  into  the  wholly  strange,  awe  and  gloom  merge 
into  horror  and  darkness,  and  we  pass  from  the  homes  of 
the  warlike  Odhinn,  Thorr,  and  Tyr  to  hateful  Jotun- 
heim.  The  joys  of  Odhinn's  heaven  were  for  the  war- 
rior. He  only  who  had  died  by  the  sword  could  gain 
entrance  there.  Every  morning  the  heroes  of  Valholl  rode 
out  to  the  field  and  fought  till  they  had  hewn  each 
other  in  pieces  ;  but  at  even  they  were  whole  again,  and 
they  spent  the  night  over  their  cups  of  mead.  This  per- 
petual fighting  was,  as  we  know,  a  preparation  for 
Kagnarok. 

A  paradise  such  as  this  would  ill  have  suited  quiet  folk  : 
and  even  among  the  Germans  there  were  some  of  these 
There  was  a  simpler  sort  of  religion  which  belonged  to 
those  who  in  after  years  became  the  peasantry.1  They 
were  averse  from  war,  but  fond  of  rustic  life  and  its  quiet 
pleasures.  There  must  always  be  in  the  midst  of  a  society, 
however  warlike,  a  large  class  of  those  who  have  no  taste 
for  the  favourite  pursuit,  who  have  no  desire  for  adventure 
nor  for  change  of  home.  These  are  the  true  children  of 
the  soil.  We  trace  their  influence  in  every  creed ;  and 
their  religion  is  the  faith  of  worshippers  to  whom  no  mere 
change  of  creed  is  of  vital  importance.  They  have  their 
poetry  of  nature,  which  asks  no  aid  from  anxious  thought 
and  aspiration.  Whatever  others  may  discover  of  the 
secrets  of  life,  they  can  find  out  this  at  least,  that  there 
are  still  cakes  and  ale  to  be  met  with  there,  and  open 
sunny  meadows,  and  grasses  and  flowers,  and  silvery  streams, 
and  soft  shy  wood  creatures,  and  fishes  and  innumerable 

1  The  old  Germans  had  not  precisely  slaves  after  the  Roman  fashion, 
but  they  had  serfs,  who  cultivated  the  soil  for  them  (Tac.  Germ.  e.  25, 
and  Guizot,  Cours,  &c.,  Hist,  de  France,  i.  p.  265).  These  serfs  may  have 
been  originally  Slavonic  by  blood  (slav  =  slave),  but  they  spoke  German, 
and  made  up  the  lower  population  of  the  Germans. 

B   B 


370  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

birds.  For  them,  as  the  true  bard  of  all  this  craft l  in  old 
days  said,  <  for  them  earth  yields  her  increase ;  for  them 
the  oaks  hold  in  their  summits  acorns  and  in  their  mid- 
most branches  bees.  The  flocks  bear  for  them  their  fleecy 
burdens,  and  their  wives  bring  forth  children  like  to  their 
fathers.  They  live  in  unchanged  happiness,  and  need 
not  ply  across  the  sea  in  impious  ships.'  There  were  such 
men  and  women  as  these  among  our  own  forefathers  ;  and 
the  religion  which  the}7"  made  their  own  was  of  necessity 
somewhat  opposed  to  the  creed  of  the  Wodin-worshippers. 

There  are  two  gods  who  seein  to  belong  to  this  faction  : 
both  gods  of  summer  and  the  sun.  One  is  Balder,  the 
brightest  and  best  beloved  among  the  ^JEsir,  who  was  the 
very  sun  himself,  the  day  star  in  his  mild  aspect,  as  he 
would  naturally  appear  in  the  North.  Balder 's  house  was 
called  Breicablik,  Wide-Glance — that  is  to  say,  it  was  the 
bright  upper  air  which  is  the  sun's  home.  This  palace 
was  surrounded  by  a  space  called  the  peace-stead,  in  which 
110  deed  of  violence  could  be  done.2  Balder  appears  to  us 
like  the  son  of  Leto  in  his  most  benignant  mood.  When 
he  died  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  '  both  living  things 
and  trees  and  stones  and  all  metals,'  wept  to  bring  him 
back  again : 3  as,  indeed,  all  things  must  weep  at  the  loss 
of  the  sun,  chief  nourisher  at  life's  feast. 

The  other  sun  god,  or  summer  god,  was  Freyr,  who  was 
connected  with  the  spring  and  with  all  the  growth  of 
plants  and  animals  ;  he  was  a  patron  of  agriculture,  and, 
like  Balder,  a  god  of  peace;  'to  him  must  men  pray  for 
good  harvests  and  for  peace ; ' 4  a  £  beauteous  and  "mighty 
god  '  he  was,  like  Apollo  Chrysaor,  girt  with  a  sword  ; 
not  so  much  for  fight  as  because  the  sun's  rays  are  ever 
likened  to  a  sword.  Freyr  can  fight  upon  occasion  ;  and 
he  will  engage  in  one  of  the  three  great  combats  of 
Ragnarok.5 

1  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  232 

2  Edda  Snorra,  D.  49,  and  Frijnofssaga,  beginning. 

8  E.  S.  1.  c.  4  E.  S.  D.  24  «  See  Chap.  VIII. 


FKEYJA  AND  GEKD.  371 

The  gentler  side  of  the  religion  was  in  the  North,  as  it 
always  is,  associated  rather  with  the  goddesses  than  with 
gods.  Here,  as  among  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  great 
patron  of  the  peasant  folk  was  the  earth  goddoss.1  In 
Tacitus  the  divinity  appears  under  the  name  of  Nerthus, 
which  is  perhaps  Hertha.2  A  similar  goddess  among  the 
Suevi  is  called  by  him  Isis.  Other  German  names  which 
seem  to  belong  more  or  less  to  the  same  divinity  are 
Harke,  Holda,  Perchta,  Bertha.  We  must  class  with 
these  beings  the  Norse  Frigg  (German  Freka).  Her  I 
have  alreacty  taken  as  an  example  of  the  way  in  which  the 
earth  goddess  may  lose  her  distinctive  character  and  put 
on  that  of  the  heaven  god  through  becoming  his  wife. 
Hera,  we  saw,  did  this  in  the  Greek  pantheon,  and  Frigg 
does  the  same  in  the  Northern.  She  is  not  a  conspicuous 
character  in  the  Scandinavian  mythology. 

To  Frigg  Freyja  bears  the  same  relationship  that 
Persephone  bears  to  Demeter ;  wherefore  we  may  say 
that  Frigg,  Freyr,  and  Freyja  correspond  to  Demeter, 
Dionysus,  and  Persephone,  and  more  closely  still  to  the 
Ceres,  Liber,  and  Libera  of  the  Eomans.  After  what  was 
said  in  Chapter  V.  touching  the  relationship  of  these  latter 
gods,  no  further  explanation  is  needed  of  the  character  of 
Frigg,  Freyr,  and  Freyja. 

It  is  strange,  however,  to  see  how  the  tale  of  the 
wanderings  and  sorrows  of  the  earth  goddess  in  search  of 
the  spring  reappears  in  the  mythology  of  every  land,  and 
ends  in  every  case  in  some  form  of  mystery.  There  are 
two  stories  in  the  Eddas 3  which  especially  correspond  to 
the  myths  commemorated  in  the  anodos  (up-coming)  of 
Persephone  and  her  marriage  with  Dionysus  and  in  her 

1  See  Chap.  V. 

2  The  identity  of  Nerthus  and  Hertha  is  assumed  by  most  writers  who 
are  not  specialists  upon  the  subject  of  German  etymology ;  but,  as  it  is 
not  admitted  by  Grimm,  I  hesitate  to  assume  it,  probable  as,  at  first  sight, 
it  appears  (see  Grimm,  D.  M.  chap,  xiii.)    Nerthus,  says  Meyer,  corre- 
sponds to  the  Skr.  Nritus,  terra  (Nachtrag  to  Grimm's  D.  M.  iii.  84).   Nritua 
or  Nirrtis  became  the  Queen  of  the  Dead  (see  p.  289). 

*  From  E.  S.  D.  37,  and  Skirnismal. 
B  B  2 


372  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Jcathodos  (down-going)  and  the  sorrows  of  Demeter  for  her 
loss.  The  first  is  the  history  of  the  wooing  of  Gerd  by 
Freyr,  and  it  is  thus  told : — 

There  was  a  man  named  G^mir,1  and  his  wife  was 
Orbotfa  (Aurboca),  of  the  mountain  jotuns'  race.  Their 
daughter  was  Gerd,  fairest  of  all  women.  Once  Freyr 
mounted  the  seat  of  Odhinn,  which  was  called  Air  Throne ; 
and  looking  northward  into  far  Giant  Land,  he  saw  a  light 
•flash  forth.  Looking  again,  he  saw  that  the  light  was 
made  by  the  maiden  Gerd,  who  had  just  opened  her  father's 
door,  and  that  it  was  her  beauty  which  thus  shone  over  the 
snow.  Then  Freyr  was  smitten  with  love  sadness,  and 
determined  to  woe  the  fair  one  to  be  his  wife  ;  and  so  he 
sent  his  messenger,  Skirnir,  to  whom  he  gave  his  horse  and 
magic  sword.  Skirnir  went  to  Gerd,  and  he  told  her  how 
great  Freyr  was  among  the  JEsir,  and  how  noble  and  happy 
a  place  was  Asgard,  the  home  of  the  gods  ;  but  for  all  his 
pleading  Gerd  would  give  no  ear  to  his  suit.  At  last  the 
messenger  drew  his  sword,  and  threatened  to  take  her 
life,  unless  she  would  grant  to  Freyr  his  desire.  So  Gerd 
promised  to  visit  the  god  nine  nights  thence,  in  Barri's 
wood. 

Here  a  very  simple  nature  myth  is  told  us.  The 
earth  will  not  respond  to  the  wooing  of  the  sun  unless  he 
draw  his  snarp  sword,  the  rays.  Freyr  himself  it  must 
have  been  who  in  the  original  myth  undertook  the  journey 
into  dark  Jotunheim.2  In  very  northern  lands  we  know 
that  the  sun  himself  does  actually  disappear  in  the  cold 
North,  the  death  region.  When  he  is  there  the  earth  con- 

1  Gymir  is  a  name  of  the  sea  god  Oegir  =  Oceanus  etymologically  and 
actually.    See  Oegisdrekka,  beg.    The  relationship  between  such  a  being  and 
the  earth  is  not  quite  plain,  though  the  explanation  may  certainly  be 
suggested  by  what  has  been  said  of  the  nature  of  Oceanus  in  Chapter  II. 
and  in  various  places.     Gymir  is  by  Simrock  connected  with  Hymir,  who 
is  the  winter  sea  (EtymiskvrSa).    (Handbuch  der  deutschen  Mythologie,  p. 
61.)     Simrock  also  says  that  Gymir  is  an  under-world  god  (p.  398). 

2  Skirnir  is  in  fact  only  a  by-name  of  Freyr  (see  Lex.  Mythol.  70GJ). 
The  same  authority  says  that  Skirnir  means  the  air,  which  somewhat  com- 
plicates the  solution  of  the  story.     The  Icl.  sldrr  is  our  slider. 


ISIS  AND  NEKTHUS.  373 

sents  to  meet  him  again  with  love  nine  nights  hence — that 
is  to  say,  after  the  nine  winter  months  are  over.  They  meet 
in  Barri's  wood,  which  is  the  wood  in  its  first  greenness.1 

We  turn  now  to  the  Norse  version  of  the  /cdOoSos  of 
Persephone,  which  is  shorter  than  the  history  of  the 
wooing  of  Gerd,  and  which,  it  will  be  seen,  bears  more 
resemblance  to  the  history  of  Isis,  who  lost  her  husband, 
than  to  the  history  of  Demeter,  who  lost  her  daughter. 
The  part  of  the  earth  is  taken  here  by  Freyja.  Freyja, 
we  are  told,  had  a  husband,  Odhur,2  who  left  his  wife  to 
travel  in  far  countries  and  never  returned.  Freyja  went 
in  search  of  him,  and  in  that  quest  passed  (like  Demeter) 
through  many  lands ;  so  that  she  has  many  names,  ( for 
each  people  called  her  by  a  different  one/* 3  But  all  her 
journeyings  were  vain  ;  e  and  since  then  she  weeps  continu- 
ally, and  her  tears  are  drops  of  gold.5  4 

We  know  that  one  of  the  essential  parts  of  the  mystery 
of  the  earth  goddess  was  that  part  which  celebrated  her 
'  coming '  in  the  form  of  spring,  and  how  this  advent  was 
represented  to  the  sense  as  a  journey  of  the  image — the 
rude  agalma  or  the  statue — of  the  goddess  from  place  to 
place.  For  this  reason  was  Isis  carried  in  a  car  or  in  a 
boat,5  and  in  a  car  was  drawn  the  Ephesian  Artemis,  like 
many  another  earth  goddess  of  Asiatic  birth;  for  this 
reason  once  was  dragged  Demeter  in  that  car  harnessed 
with  panthers  and  lions  to  which  the  chorus  of  Euripides 
makes  allusion ;  or  the  image  of  the  spring  god,  lacchos, 

1  Barri  is  '  green.' 

2  Odhur  is  really  identical  with  Odhinn,  as  Freyja  is  (this  tale  among 
others,  and  her  name  too,  showing  her  to  be  so)  with  Frigg.     It  is  worth 
noting    that    whereas  Frigg   has    generally  to    conform    her    nature    to 
that  of  her  husband,  in  this  particular  story  Odhinn  (Odhur)  takes  upon 
himself  a  character  foreign  to  the  heaven  god,  in  order  to  complete  the 
myth  of  the  earth. 

3  Edda  Snorja,  D.  35.     See  what  was  said  on  p.  49  and  in  Chap.  V. 
touching  the  different  names  of  the  earth  goddess. 

4  The  rains  of  autumn,  so  rich  for  future  gain,  yet  which  are  shed  by 
the  Earth  as  she  looks  upon  the  decay  of  summer  and  searches  in  vain  for 
the  verdure  of  spring. 

5  Apuleius  Met.  xi. ;  Lactantius,  i.  27. 


374  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

was  borne  from  Athens  to  Eleusis.  In  these  forms  of 
mystery  the  mythic  journey  was  translated  into  a  real  one. 
We  have  the  best  reason  for  believing  that  as  similar 
ceremonies  were  observed  in  the  case  of  the  German  earth 
goddess,  among  the  Germans  also  there  existed  a  mystery. 
This  was  not  indeed  a  celebration  of  the  highly  developed 
kind,  such  as  the  Eleusinia,  but  one  of  that  primitive 
rural  order  of  mysteries  such  as  are  still  traceable  within 
or  behind  the  more  elaborate  ceremonial  of  the  Greek 
mysteria.1 

Tacitus  appears  to  mention  two  German  earth  god- 
desses, Nerfchus  and  Isis ;  it  is  probable  that  the  two  names 
really  connote  the  same  personality.  When  the  historian 
calls  one  of  them,  the  divinity  of  the  Suevi,  Isis,  he  assuredly 
bestows  this  name  upon  her  on  the  same  principle  by 
which  he  gives  the  names  Mercury,  Hercules,  and  Mars  to 
Wuotan,  Donar,  and  Zio — namely,  because  there  was  that 
in  the  character  of  the  German  goddess  which  recalled  to 
his  mind  the  Isis  known  to  the  Romans.  In  truth,  one  of 
these  points  of  likeness  he  immediately  afterwards  men- 
tions— the  fact  that  the  image  of  the  German  goddess  was 
carried  from  place  to  place  in  a  boat.  We  may  conclude 
from  these  data  that  the  Suevian  goddess  had  her  mys- 
teries, which  were  not  unlike  those  of  the  Roman  Isis.3 
Again,  concerning  the  other  earth  goddess,  Nerthus,  Tacitus 
is  still  more  explicit.  In  the  first  place  we  learn  that  she 
was  recognised  as  a  personification  of  the  earth — Nerthus 
id  est  Terra  Mater.  Some  have  thought  that  for  Nerthus 
in  this  passage  we  should  read  Hertha. 

This  Nerthus  had,  it  seems,  her  home  in  an  island  of 
the  Northern  Sea — Riigen,  as  is  supposed,  or  Heligoland.3 
Her  secret  shrine  in  the  centre  of  the  island  was  sur- 

1  See  Chap.  V. 

2  I  use  the  term  Roman  Isis,  because  there  can  be  no  question  that^the 
Isis  as  worshipped  in  Home  differed  much  from  the  goddess  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians.     See  Chap.  V. 

3  Heligoland  =  Heilige  Land.      Riigen,  however,  is  the  most  probable 
conjecture  for  the  identification  of  the  island  in  question. 


SURVIVALS  OF  RUSTIC   WORSHIP.  375 

rounded  by  a  dense  thicket,  which  none  but  priests  might 
enter.  Thence  every  year  she  was  taken  to  be  shown  for 
a  season  to  the  people,  and  in  order  that  her  wanderings, 
like  those  of  Demeter,  should  be  made  the  subject  of 
dramatic  representation.  When  brought  to  the  mainland, 
she  was  dragged  from  place  to  place  in  a  closed  waggon — 
which  was  probably  fashioned  like  a  ship  mounted  on 
wheels l — and  wherever  she  came  she  brought  gladness 
and  peace.  (  Happy  is  the  place,  joyful  the  day,  which  is 
honoured  by  the  entertainment  of  such  a  guest ;  no  war  can 
go  on,  no  arms  are  borne,  the  sword  rests  in  its  scabbard. 
This  peace  and  rest  continue  till  the  priest  takes  back  the 
goddess,  satiate  of  converse  with  mortals.'2 

Evidently  we  have  here  the  trace  of  mystic  celebrations 
riot  unlike  the  beginnings  of  the  Greek  Eleusinia ;  rites 
of  a  simple  kind  such  as  are  suited  to  the  feelings  of  a 
primitive  race. 

Now  ifc  is  to  be  expected  that  the  rustic  side  of 
heathenism,  the  woiship  of  the  peasant  class,  should  have 
kept  its  observances  more  free  from  the  destructive  in- 
fluence of  Christianity  than  was  possible  to  the  fiercer  part 
of  the  creed,  that  side  of  it  which  was  represented  by  the 
great  divinities  Odhinn,  Thorr,3  and  Tyr.  The  worship  of 
the  gods  of  the  mark  might  be  called  the  Church  militant 
of  heathenism.  The  votaries  of  these  gods  were  the  men 
who  first  sallied  forth  to  conquer  in  the  territories  of  Rome, 
and  who,  having  been  victorious  in  arms,  were  again  them- 
selves conquered  by  Christianity.  Those  who  remained  be- 
hind, when  they  had  to  submit  to  the  new  religion,  quietly 
fashioned  it  to  suit  their  own  ideas.  They  strove  to  make 
Christianity  a  creed  fit  for  rustic  folk  concerned  with  few 
cares,  unless  to  secure  good  harvests,  and  with  offerings  to 

1  The  reasons  for  this  supposition  may  be  best  studied  in  Grimm,  D.  M. 
ch.  xiii.  2  Tac.  Germ.  c.  40. 

3  Thorr  had  a  certain  relationship  to  peasant  life  which  Uhland  has 
brought  prominently  forward  in  his  interesting  and  poetical  Mythiis  von 
Tkorr.  Nevertheless  he  belonged  "originally  to  the  fighting  gods.  As  a 
god  of  the  peasant  folk  he  appeared  later. 


376  OUTLINES  QF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

ward  off  the  threat  of  hail  and  thunder.  And  the  Christian, 
priests,  who  sprang  from  the  peasant  class,  could  not  find 
it  in  their  hearts  altogether  to  condemn  the  ancient  rites ; 
rather  they  glossed  them  over  as  tributes  to  the  honour  of 
the  Virgin  or  of  some  saint.  Wherefore  it  happens  that 
in  one  form  or  another,  whether  as  a  survival  of  heathenism 
or  as  a  heathen  festival  christianised,  we  have  constant 
proof  of  the  great  vitality  of  the  cult  of  the  old  earth 
deity,  whether  we  call  her  Nerthus,  or  Frigg,  or  Berchta,  or 
Holda ;  and  we  find  her  rites  surviving  in  popular  religion 
from  the  Middle  Ages  down  even  to  our  own  times. 

One  example,  perhaps  the  most  striking  of  which  any 
record  remains,  of  the  appearance  in  the  Middle  Ages  of  a 
ritual  observance  allied  to  the  ancient  rites  of  Nerthus  is 
worth  quoting.  The  record  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
chronicle  of  Rudolf,  Abbot  of  St.  Tron,  a  place  between 
Liege  and  Lou  vain.1  The  ceremonial — for  such  we  must 
call  it — which  in  this  passage  the  chronicler  describes, 
arose  out  of  the  rivalry  between  the  rustic  population  near 
Aachen  and  the  weavers  of  the'  neighbourhood,  and  took 
the  form  of  a  distinctly  heathen  revival.  Weavers  have 
generally  been  noted  for  their  piety,  and  not  least  so  the 
weavers  of  the  country  of  the  Lower  Ehine,  who  have 
counted  among  their  ranks,  on  the  one  hand,  some  of  the 
devoutest  spirits  of  Catholicism,  as  Thomas  of  Kempen, 
and,  on  the  other,  some  of  the  most  zealous  champions  of 
the  Reformed  Creed.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  weavers 
of  Abbot  Rudolf's  history  combined  with  their  attachment 
to  Christianity  no  small  contempt  for  the  uncultured  and 
half -heathen  rustics  who  lived  around.  These  last,  who 
were  in  a  numerical  majority,  determined  to  have  their 
revenge.  So  in  a  neighbouring  wood  they  constructed  a 
ship,  which  they  placed  on  wheels,  and  carried  in  procession 
from  place  to  place.  Multitudes  joined  the  concourse, 
both  men  and  women,  and  they  proceeded  with  heathen 

1  The  date  of  this  chronicle  is  circa  A.D.  1133.  It  is  published  by  Perz, 
xii.  309,  and  is  quoted  by  Grimm,  D.  M.  i.  214. 


EASTER  AND  MAY.  DAY.  377 

and  licentious  songs  and  unrestrained  gestures,  until  the 
whole  celebration  must  have  assumed  the  aspect  of  a  Diony- 
siac  orgy.  The  weavers,  willy  nilly,  were  compelled  to  drag 
the  heathen  thing  about.1  It  was  taken  from  the  village 
where  it  had  first  been  made  (Cornelimiinster,  near  Aachen) 
to  Maestricht.  There  it  was  furnished  with  a  mast  and 
sail,  and  thence  dragged  to  Tongres,  and  from  Tongres  to 
Loos.  Some  of  the  nobility  favoured  the  movement, 
which  grew  to  the  proportion  of  a  small  tumult  and 
could  not  be  put  down  without  bloodshed. 

There  are  many  other  examples  of  rustic  festivals  of 
a  soberer  kind,  such  as  were  approved  by  the  Church.  One 
of  these  was  the  festival  or  fast  of  the  death  of  Balder, 
which  has  been  preserved  down  to  modern  days  in  the 
St.  John's  Days'  fires,  Johannisfeuer,  feux  de  St.-Jean. 
But  of  these  I  shall  speak  again  in  another  chapter ;  for 
the  story  of  Balder  'a  death  has  yet  to  be  told.  The 
Midsummer  fire  of  Balder,  though  the  greatest  among 
Teutonic  celebrations  of  this  kind,  is  only  one  among 
several  which  are  preserved  in  the  popular  customs  of 
Teutonic  and  Celtic  peoples.  Three  other  seasons  were 
specially  set  apart  for  this  sort  of  festivity.  One  was 
Easter,  now  a  Church  festival  and  movable,  originally  a 
stationary  feast  in  honour  of  Ostara  (Sox.  Eastre),  a  goddess 
of  spring,  who  is  scarcely  distinguishable  from  Ereyja. 
Another  was  the  first  of  May,  now  SS.  Phillip  and  James, 
in  German  Walpurgistag ;  the  third  was  the  festival  of 

1 « Pauper  quidam  rusticus  ex  villa  nomine  Inda"  hanc  diabolicam  ex- 
cogitavit  technam.  Accepta"  a  judicibus  fiducia"  et  a  levibus  hominibus 
auxilio  qui  gaudent  jocis  et  novitatibus,  in  proximo"  silvd  navem  com- 
posuit,  et  earn  rotis  suppositis  affigens  vehibilem  super  terrain  effecit, 
obtinuit  quoque  a  potestatibus,  ut  injectis  funibus  textorum  humeris  ex 
Inda  Aquisgranam  (Aix)  traheretur.  .  .  . 

4  Textores  interim  occulto  sed  praecordiali  gemitu  deum  justum  judicem 
super  eos  vindicem  invocabant,  qui  ad  hanc  ignominiam  eos  detrudebant 
....  Cumque  hsec  et  eorum  similia  secum,  ut  dixi,  lacrymabiliter  con- 
quererentur  concrepabant  ante  illud  nescio  cujus  potius  dicam,  Bacchi  an 
Veneris,  Neptuni  sive  Martis,  sed  ut  verius  dicam  ante  omnium  malignorum 
spirituum  execrabile  domicilium  genera  dlversorum  musicorum  turpia 
cantica  et  religwni  Christiana  concinentium,  .  .  .' 


378  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  New  Year,  or  of  Yule.  On  each  of  these  occasions 
great  bonfires  were  lighted,  and  kept  burning  all  night 
through. 

Easter  was  specially  the  season  of  new  birth ;  whence 
arose  the  custom  of  baptising  at  Easter,  and  also  the 
symbolism  of  the  Easter  egg.1  These  Easter  eggs  are 
coloured  red  and  yellow,  in  reference  to  the  Easter  fire,  or 
else  to  the  sun.2  The  ceremonies  which  are  appropriated 
to  any  of  these  bonfires  are  generally  the  same.  Girls 
who  wish  to  be  married  during  the  year  must  dance  round 
them  three  times  (or  nine  times),  or  give  three  leaps  over 
the  flame.3  Youths  must  do  the  same.  The  Walpurgis- 
feuer  has  a  special  mission  in  keeping  off  the  witches,  for 
Walpurgisnacht  is  a  great  night  for  the  witches'  Sabbath. 
On  that  night  fires  are  kindled  on  all  the  hills ;  and  super- 
stition holds  that  so  far  as  the  light  of  each  fire  extends, 
to  that  distance  the  witches  are  banned.4  This  season,  also, 
is  a  time  of  new  birth  and  of  a  sort  of  heathen  baptism ; 
to  wash  in  May  dew  guards  against  bewitchment.5  The 
Nativity  of  the  Virgin  Mary  is  another  festival  of  the 
spring,  of  the  anodos  ;  the  Virgin  here  standing  in  popular 
superstition  for  Persephone  or  for  Ger<Sr. 

The  way  in  which  the  maypole  is  or  was  honoured  in 
our  village  festivals  recalls  to  some  extent  the  ancient  tree 
worship,  which  preceded  even  the  cult  of  Odhinn  or  of 
Nerthus ;  but  the  ceremonies  are  also  specially  connected 
with  the  worship  of  the  earth  goddess. 

The  author  of  the  '  Anatomie  of  Abuses '  has  drawn 
for  us  a  picture  of  the  way  in  which  Mayday  Eve  and 
May  Morning  were  spent  in  the  villages  of  England  in 


1  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that,  until  the  change  in  the 
style,  the  civil  year  began  on  the  25th  of  March. 

2  So  at  least  says  Wuttke,  Deutsclte  Volfaaberglaube. 

3  Called  in  Germany  Freudenta/nz  and  Freudensprung . 

4  Wuttke,  1.  c. 

5  May  was  also  sacred  to  Thorr,  and  to  the  hammer,  of  Thorr,  the  symbol 
of  law.     It  was  the  time  for  Folk-things,  the  Cliamps  de  Mai,  £c.,  the  fore- 
runners of  our  May  Meetings. 


OF  THE 


MAY  DAY.  379 

the  sixteenth  century ;  drawn  it,  doubtless,  with  an  un- 
friendly pencil,1  but,  we  may  well  believe,  truly  as  to  the 
main  details. 

'  They  goe  some  to  the  woods  and  groves,  some  to  the 
hills  and  mountaines,  when  they  spend  the  night  in  plea- 
saunt  pastime,  and  in  the  morning  they  return,  bringing 
with  them  birche  boughes  and  branches  of  trees  to  deck 
their  assemblies  withal.  But  their  chiefest  jewel  they 
bring  thence  is  the  maypoale,  which  they  bring  home  with 
great  veneration  as  thus  :  they  have  twentie  or  fourtie 
yoake  of  oxen,  and  everie  oxe  hath  a  sweet  nosegaie  of 
flowers  tied  to  the  top  of  his  homes,  and  these  oxen  drawe 
the  maypoale,  the  stinking  idol  rather.  ...  I  have  heard 
it  crediblie  reported  that  of  fourtie,  three  score,  or  an 
hundred  maides  going  to  the  wood,  there  have  scarcely 
the  third  part  returned  as  they  went.' 

By  the  severity  of  this  picture  of  the  stinking  idol  and 
its  licentious  abuses  we  are  perhaps  brought  all  the  nearer 
to  the  ancient  rites  out  of  which  the  May  dances  had  their 
rise ;  I  mean  to  that  primitive  earth  worship  which  begins 
so  far  back  and  lasts  so  long.  For  orgiastic  rites  had  no 
small  share  in  this  primitive  ritual. 

In  being  present  at  such  ceremonies  nowadays,  and  in 
watching  the  dance  round  the  maypole  —  which  might 
rather  be  called  a  sort  of  rhythmic  walking  of  interlacing 
figures  than  an  actual  dance — I  have  had  my  thoughts 
forcibly  led  to  that  mimic  search  for  the  lost  Persephone, 
a  search  from  side  to  side  with  lighted  torches,  which  was 
part  of  the  dramatic  celebration  of  the  Eleusinia.  The 
simple  music  which  accompanied  the  dances  might  have 
been  given  forth  by  a  choir  of  the  Eumolpidse,  or  by  the 
shepherd  pipes  which  led  the  procession  in  the  Eoman 
Lupercalia. 

But  again,  to  turn  the  picture  a  little,  although  the 
midnight  festival  which  formed  part  of  the  old  Teutonic 

1  Stubbs,  in  his  Anatomic  of  Abtises,  1595. 


380  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

earth  worship  was  still  kept  up  in  the  '  pleasant  pastimes ' 
of  Mayday  Eve,  yet  in  it  we  may  likewise  detect  the  germ 
out  of  which  mediaeval  superstition  was  to  foster  its  belief 
in  the  terrible  Brocken  dance  of  the  Walpurgisnacht. 

Another  among  the  customs  which  belong  to  spring 
time  is  that  of  dragging  from  place  to  place  a  plough  upon 
wheels.  This  plough  is  the  changed  form  of  the  ship 
which  we  have  seen  carrying  the  image  of  Nerthus,  a 
form  suitable  to  settled  folk  and  to  agricultural  lives.1  In 
some  places  where  this  festival  of  the  plough  takes  place 
the  young  men  who  drag  about  the  car  compel  any  girl 
they  meet  (who  has  not  previously  furnished  herself  with 
a  lover)  to  join  their  band.  And  in  this  custom  we  detect 
a  faint  shadow  of  ancient  orgiastic  rites.  Shrove  Tuesday 
is  the  day  generally  set  apart  in  Germany  for  the  dragging 
of  the  plough ;  in  England  it  is  the  previous  Monday, 
hence  called  Plough  Monday.2 

The  tradition  of  the  Wandering  Jew — he  is  Odhinn 
transformed — is  that  he  can  rest  one  night  in  the  year 
only — namely,  on  the  night  of  Shrove  Tuesday — and  that 
then  he  rests  upon  a  plough  or  upon  a  harrow.  Shrove 
Tuesday  is  of  course  the  day  when  all  sins  should  be 
absolved  (Shrive  Tuesday) ;  but,  in  addition  to  this  notion, 
I  cannot  but  see  in  the  resting  of  this  sinner  (who  is  also 
the  fierce  war  god)  upon  the  plough  a  reminiscence,  how- 
ever faint,  of  the  joyful  and  peaceful  day  when  the  earth 
goddess  came  round  drawn  in  her  car. 

Where  the  image  of  this  earth  deity  would  once  have 
been  borne,  that  of  the  Virgin  (the  Marienbild)  was  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  is  now,  carried  about  to  bless  the  fields. 

1  Our  word  plough,  the  German  Pftug,  is  etymologically  connected  with 
the  Greek  TT\OVS,  a  sailing,  or  irXolov,  a  ship.     Therefore  ploiujli  probably 
originally  meant  a  ship. 

2  '  They  plough  up  the  soil  before  any  house  whence  they  receive  no 
reward '  (Strutt,  Sports  and  Pastimes,  260).     This  writer  says  that  Plough 
Monday  was  the  first  Monday  after  Epiphany.     My  own  recollections  of 
the  festival  are  associated  with  the  day  before  Shrove  Tuesday.     We  also 
read  of  a  Fool  Plough  (Yule  Plough  ?)  dragged  about  at  Christmas  (p.  259). 


YULE-TIDE.  381 

The  days  sot  apart  for  this  journey  are  the  Bogation 
Days,  corresponding,  no  doubt,  very  closely  to  the  time  of 
year  in  which  Nerthus  would  have  appeared,  bringing 
fruitfulness  with  her.  During  these  Bogation  Days,  or 
upon  Ascension  Day,  takes  place  that  charming  relic  of 
old  heathenism  (Celtic,  I  should  suppose,  rather  than 
German)  called  in  England  '  well-dressing.'  In  Brittany 
the  choirs  of  the  churches,  headed  by  the  priests,  make 
(or  used  to  make)  solemn  procession  with  flowers  and 
chaunts  to  the  fountain-head.1  In  England  well-dressing 
is  common  chiefly  in  the  midland  counties  or  toward  the 
west,  in  the  districts  which  were  once  part  of  Mercia  or 
of  Strathclyde.  At ,  Lichfield  well-dressing  is  celebrated 
with  choral  processions  as  jn  Brittany. 

The  task  of  tracing  the  remains  of  German  heathenism 
in  popular  lore  and  popular  customs  is  fascinating,  but  it 
is  endless.  We  will  therefore  let  our  attention  rest  only 
on  one  other  season  beside  those  which  have  been  already 
spoken  of,  the  most  important  season  of  all.  I  mean  the 
twelve  days  (die  Zwolfen).  With  us  this  phrase  'twelve 
days'  always  means  the  days  which  follow  Christmas. 
In  Germany  that  is  likewise  the  usual  reckoning;  but 
sometimes  the  days  are  all  counted  before  Christmas,  and 
made  to  end  on  Christmas  Day.  Sometimes  they  are  the 
twelve  days  which  precede  the  New  Year  (Yule) — that  is  to 
say,  those  extending  from  St.  Thomas's  Day  till  New  Year's 
Day.  Sometimes,  again,  they  are  the  twelve  days  which 
follow  New  Year's  Day.  The  Easter  feast  was  in  honour  of 
Freyja  or  of  Ostara ;  the  Midsummer  feast  was  in  honour 
of  Balder ;  but  that  of  Midwinter,  the  Yule,  was  sacred  to 
Odhirin,  as  such  a  season  might  well  be  to  a  god  of  storms. 
According  to  the  most  usual  disposition  of  the  days,  there- 
fore, this  Odhinn  festival  of  Yule  fell  in  the  very  midst 
of  the  twelve  days,  and  the  season  took  its  character  from 
Odhinn.2  Twelfth  Day  is,  in  Germany,  dedicated  to  the 

1  Cambry,  Voyage  dans  le  Finistere,  Ed.  Souvestre. 

2  "Winter  and  wind  ;  an  etymological  significance  which  appears  again 
in 


382  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Three  Kings  of  Cologne,  and  hence  called  DreiJconigetag. 
The  Three  Kings  are,  it  is  well  known,  supposed  to  be 
the  three  Magi,  and  their  names  Gaspar,  Melchior,  and 
Balthasar.  Frederick  Barbarossa  is  said  to  have  brought 
their  remains  from  Milan  to  Cologne.1 

This  is  oiily  a  tradition,  however,  which  the  Italian 
historian  has  repeated.  We  have  proof  that  the  Three 
Kings  were  worshipped  long  before  the  days  of  Frederick,2 
and  I  have  myself  little  doubt  that  the  original  Three 
Kings  were  Odhinn,  Thorr,  and  Tyr,  or,  to  give  them 
their  proper  German  names,  Wuotan,  Donar,  Zio.  This 
is  why  the  Three  Kings  were  so  widely  honoured  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  why  the  superstitions  which  still  attach 
to  them  are  so  many.  They  are  still  a  great  feature 
in  the  observances  of  Yule.  The  initials  of  their  names, 
followed  each  by  a  cross  (thus,  G  -f-  M  +  B  + ),  are  placed  at 
this  season  upon  all  the  doors  for  a  charm  against  evil 
spirits.3  Thus  may  the  twelve  days  be  regarded  as  a 
season  of  contest  between  the  Christian  and  the  heathen 
powers,  between  the  new  creed  and  the  old.  Of  old  we 
know  how  Odhinn  used  sometimes  to  walk  the  earth,  alone 
or  in  company  with  his  brothers  Hoenir  and  Loki ;  now  it 
is  Christ  who  is  said  to  revisit  earth  at  this  season  of  the 
twelve  days,  alone  or  with  one  or  more  of  His  disciples,  very 
often  accompanied  by  Peter  and  Paul.  The  man  who  on 
Christmas  Eve  stands  under  an  apple  tree  (but  for  this 
apple  let  our  memories  of  an  earlier  belief  supply  ash) 
sees  heaven  open.  At  this  time,  too,  witches  dance  and 
hold  Sabbath,  and  the  Wild  Huntsman  4  goes  his  round. 
Then  is  all  magic  rife.  The  Wise  Woman  ( Weise  Frau)  is 
seen  at  such  times  :  she  may  be  Frigg  or  Holda,  for  she 
often  brings  men  good  luck ;  or  she  may,  in  her  evil  aspect, 

1  Villani. 

2  They  are  mentioned   in  the   Clianson  de  Roland,  which  is   of  the 
eleventh    century,  a  hundred  years  before  Frederick  Barbarossa  (1152- 
1190). 

8  Wuttke,  1.  c. 

4  Hackelberg.    See  also  Chap.  X. 


YULE-TIDE.  383 

be  one  of  the  witches.  The  beasts  in  the  stall  at  this 
time  speak  and  foretell  the  future.  Dreams  and  all  other 
signs  of  fate  are  more  sought  after,  and  they  are  more 
frequent  at  this  season  than  at  any  other  of  the  year. 
All  that  is  dreamt  in  the  twelve  nights  becomes  true. 
Arid  it  is  also  said  that  the  whole  twelve  days  are  a  sort 
of  epitome  of  the  following  twelve  months ;  so  that,  what- 
ever be  the  character  of  any  individual  day,  fair  or  stormy, 
lucky  or  unlucky,  of  the  same  kind  will  be  the  correspond- 
ing month  of  the  ensuing  year.  Wherefore  the  proverb 
says,  '  The  more  fearfully  the  storm  howls,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  young  year.'  The  Yule-tide  storm  is  the 
last  voice  of  Odhinn  in  men's  ears. 


384  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMIT1VE  BELIEF. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

THE    SHADOW   OP   DEATH. 


§  1.  Visits  to  the  Under  World.     The  Death  of  Balder. 

THE  shadow  of  death  which  we  have  seen  in  the  German's 
outward  world,  his  world  in  space,  so  closely  surrounding 
all  life,  hemmed  it  in  not  less  straitly  in  the  world  of  time, 
even  the  gods  themselves  not  being  able  to  escape  final 
destruction.  There  is  a  much  closer  relationship  between 
Asgard  and  the  Scandinavian  nether  kingdom  than  there 
is  between  Olympus  and  Hades ;  so  that,  while  among  the 
Greeks  only  some  few  among  the  gods  visited  the  lower 
world,  and  of  those  who  went  all  came  back  victorious, 
having  overcome  death,  several  among  the  ^Esir  visited 
HePs  abode,  and  one  conspicuous  figure  in  their  body  went 
there  not  to  return.  Though  we  have  already  said  much 
concerning  the  gloominess  of  the  German  mythology, 
much  more  remains  to  be  said ;  for  that  mythology  can- 
not be  understood  until  we  have  passed  in  review  the 
numerous  images  and  myths  of  death  which  it  contains. 
But  we  must  remember,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
German  could  often  win  out  of  his  saddest  celebrations 
occasion  for  mirth  and  merriment,  as  an  Irishman  will  do 
at  a  wake,  and  his  very  familiarity  with  sombre  thoughts 
and  images  gave  him  a  kind  of  desperate  cheerfulness  in 
the  common  affairs  of  life. 

The   very  term  funeral  feast  is,   indeed,   a   kind   of 
paradox  :  yet  funeral  feasts  hare  existed  among  all  nations 
Among  the  Teutons  not  only  were  the  private  occasions 
>f  mourning  turned  into  seasons  of  hilarity,  but  the  very 


THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.  385 

funerals  of  the  gods  themselves — for  some  of  the  gods 
had  funerals — were  so  used.  And  this  habit  strikes 
the  key-note  of  much  that  is  characteristic  of  Teutonic 
heathenism. 

In  a  former  chapter  we  passed  in  review  the  principal 
myths  and  figures  whereby  the  Aryan  races  have  repre- 
sented to  themselves  the  idea  of  death.  Each  one  of 
these  is  to  be  found  in  one  or  more  shapes  in  the  Teutonic 
mythology.  These  people  preserved  all  the  legacy  of 
thought  upon  such  matters  which  had  been  bequeathed 
to  them  by  their  forefathers,  and  they  further  added 
some  which  were  their  peculiar  creation.  The  devouring 
beast  or  dragon,  the  man-eating  ogre,  the  pale  Goddess  of 
Death  with  her  Circe  wand,  the  mortal  river  and  the 
mortal  sea,  the  Bridge  of  Souls,  the  ghostly  ferryman — all 
these  are  to  be  found  in  the  belief  of  the  Teutons ;  all 
these  through  the  Teutons  became  afterwards  part  of  the 
mythology  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

As  the  greater  number  of  these  creations  are  in  a 
certain  degree  familiar  to  us,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to 
spend  much  time  in  pointing  out  their  characteristics. 
Rather  we  will  let  them  appear  in  their  proper  places  when, 
in  this  or  the  other  narrative,  in  company,  as  the  case  may 
happen,  of  a  human  hero  or  of  a  god,  we  shall  ourselves 
make  the  journey  to  the  Norseman's  under  world.  But 
there  is  a  series  of  personifications  of  death  which  are 
strange  to  other  systems  of  belief  beside  the  Teuton 
system,  and  of  which,  therefore,  we  have  had  as  yet  no 
occasion  to  speak.  These  we  must  first  consider. 

The  images  of  mortality  whereof  I  speak  are  those 
which  are  personifications  of  the  funeral  fire,  and  which 
therefore  spring  directly  out  of  the  custom  of  burning  the 
dead.  We  have  seen  how  the  rite  of  cremation  very  pro- 
bably arose  from  the  worship  of  the  fire  god  and  the 
desire  to  commit  the  dead  into  his  charge.  It  was,  no 
doubt,  the  sense  of  the  special  friendliness  and  human  love 
of  this  divinity — the  Agni  of  the  early  Aryas — which 

c  c 


386  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

induced  men  to  entrust  him  with,  the  care  of  the  dead 
body  rather  than  commit  it  to  the  care  of  the  universal 
mother,  the  earth.  But  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  if  the 
rite  of  corpse-burning  had  become  an  ancient  one,  and  if 
its  original  meaning  had  become  obscured  by  time,  men's 
feelings  toward  that  same  Fire  Divinity  might  come  to  be 
the,  very  reverse  of  what  they  had  once  been.  He  might 
come  to  be  for  them  a  symbol  of  death,  a  genius  of  destruc- 
tion, a  hateful  rather  than  a  beneficent  being.  When  the 
ordinary  uses'  of  fire  had  grown  familiar  through  long 
possession,  this  peculiar  aspect  of  the  fire,  that  it  was  used 
for  the  consumption  of  the  dead  bodies,  might  still  stand 
out  in  clear  relief.  And  when  the  worship  of  the  ordinary 
god  of  flame  fell  into  abeyance,  a  sort  of  new  being  would 
rise  up,  who  symbolised  only  the  funeral  fire.  This  seems 
to  have  happened  among  the  German  races,  or  at  any  rate 
among  the  Teutons  of  the  North. 

The  personification  of  the  funeral  fire  was  Loki.1  His 
name  means  simply  fire  (logi),  and  he  was  once  doubtless 
a  kind  and  friendly  deity.  Even  in  the  Eddas  he  some- 
times shows  in  this  character.  We  read  in  the  second 
chapter  of  the  great  creative  trilogjr  who  came  from  among 
the  JLsir,  and  created  man  out  of  the  stumps  Ask  and 
Embla,  of  how 


1  I  have  not  thought  it  advisable,  in  speaking  of  the  Norse  mythology, 
to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the  views  put  forward  upon  the  subject  of 
the  mythology  of  the  Eddas  by  Prof.  Bugge  and  by  Dr.  Bang.  Anyone, 
however,  who  has  read  Prof.  Bugge's  paper  will  at  the  mention  of  Loki 
have  his  thoughts  directed  to  the  passage  in  that  paper  wherein  the 
learned  writer  endeavours  to  derive  Loki  from  the  Biblical  Lucifer.  I  have 
detailed  elsewhere  (Trans.  l?,oy.  Soc.  Lit.  vol.  xii.,  '  The  Mythology  of 'the 
Eddas  ')  some  of  the  chief  points  in  which  I  am  compelled  to  dilfer  from 
Prof.  Bugge's  conclusions,  and  my  reasons  for  these  differences ;  and  I 
hope,  when  the  time  comes,  to  continue  the  subject  further.  Altogether  I 
see  nothing  which  has  yet  been  brought  forward  by  Bugge  which  tends 
to  shake  materially  the  foundations  of  the  Edclaic  mythology.  Nor,  again, 
can  I  give  much  weight  to  the  arguments  by  which  Dr.  Bang  has  en- 
deavoured to  prove  that  the  whole  of  the  Voluspa  is  an  importation  into 
the  North  from  foreign  sources.  And  in  this  opinion  I  am  glad  to  have 
the  support  of  so  learned  a  writer  as  Dr.  C.  P.  Tiele  in  a  recent>  article  in 
the  Revue  de  VHixt.  des  Rcl.  vol.  ii. 


LOKI.  387 

From  out  of  their  assembly  came  there  three 
Mighty  and  merciful  ^Esir  to  ma  's  home. 
They  found  on  earth,  almost  lifeless, 
Ask  and  Embla,  futureless. 

The  names  of  these  three  were  Odhinn,  Hoenir,  and 
Lodr,  and  Lodr  is  generally  identified  with  Loki.1  Nay, 
if  Loki  had  not  once  been  a  friendly  power  he  could  not 
have  been  classed  among  the  ^Esir,  as  he  generally  is. 

Nevertheless  the  more  common  appearances  of  this 
being  are  in  a  precisely  contrary  character.  In  most  of 
his  deeds  he  has  quite  forgotten  his  kindly  office  and 
become  an  enemy  to  gods  and  men.  The  change  which 
the  personification  of  fire  underwent  between  the  days  of 
Agni  worship  and  the  days  of  Loki  worship  is  very  remark- 
able, and  can  only  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  Norse- 
men looked  with  such  gloomy  thoughts  upon  the  funeral 
fire.  Agni,  the  companion  and  friend  of  man,  the 
guardian  of  the  house,  the  one  who  invited  the  gods 
down  to  the  feast,  was  the  same  who  bore  away  the  dead 
man's  soul  from  the  pyre.  But  in  this  case  his  kindly 
nature  overrode  his  more  terrible  aspect.  In  the  Norse 
creed  it  was  quite  different.  Loki  was  essentially  a  god  of 
death. 

Loki  is  represented  siding  sometimes  with  the  gods,2 
more  often  with  the  giants.3  He  has  a  house  in  Asgard  and 
yet  he  is  called  a  jotun.4  There  are,  therefore,  in  reality 
two  Lokis.  One  is  the  As-Loki,  who  must  once  have  been 
friendly  to  men,  as  all  the  .ZEsir  were  ;  the  other  is  the  giant 
Loki,  who  has  a  home  in  Giant  Land.  But  in  the  account 
which  is  preserved  of  Loki  in  the  Eddas  he  appears  almost 
always  as  unfriendly  to  both  gods  and  men.  '  Loki,'  says 
the  Younger  Edda,  *  never- ceased  to  work  evil  among  the 

1  Simrock,  Ifandbuck  der  dent.  Myth.  31 ;  Thorpe's  Edda,  Index,  &c.  ; 
Grimm,  D.  M.  i.  200. 

2  prymskvrSa,  Thorr's  journey  to  Jotunheim,  &c. 

3  Voluspa,  (Egisdrekka,   &c.,  Death  of  Balder,   Punishment  of   Loki, 
Ragnarok,  &c. 

4  Voluspa,  48,  54  ;  see  also  50. 

cc  2 


388  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF.  . 


Therefore  the  giant  nature  has  overborne  the 
Asa  nature;  but  both  exist  in  him.  This  duplicity  of 
being  marks  him  on  every  occasion.  He  had  two  wives, 
we  are  told.  One  was  in  Asgard,  but  the  other  was  of 
giant  kind.  The  name  of  this  last  was  AngrboSa  (Angst- 
lote,  pain  messenger),  and  by  her  Loki  begat  the  Fenris 
wolf  (Fenrisulfr),  the  Midgard  serpent,  and  Hel. 

Now  of  this  family  of  Loki  each  member  is  a  personi- 
fication of  death  in  one  or  other  of  its  forms.  The  Fen- 
risulfr, or  wolf  Fenrir,  is  a  familiar  image  enough  ;  he  is 
the  Cerberus  of  Greek  mythology,  the  Sarameyas  of  In- 
dian mythology  ;  he  is,  in  a  word,  the  devouring  tomb. 
Jormungandr  is  his  own  brother,  almost  his  counterpart. 
The  name  of  Jormungandr  means  the  ravening  monster; 
his  nature  as  the  earth  serpent  shows  him  to  be  nearly 
allied  to  the  River  of  Death.1  Angrboda  is  a  personi- 
fication of  darkness  and  of  death.  We  shall  anon  meet 
with  her  sitting  at  the  entrance  to  the  House  of  the  Shades. 
Her  daughter  Hel,  the  very  Queen  of  the  Dead,  asks  the 
help  of  no  commentary  to  explain  her  nature. 

There  are  other  ways  in  which  the  funeral  fire  came 
to  take  its  place  in  the  Teuton's  eschatology,  or  belief 
concerning  the  way  to  the  Land  of"  Shades.  Seeing  that 
the  dead  man  had  to  pass  through  the  funeral  fire  to  get 
there,  it  was  natural  that  the  place  should  be  imagined 
surrounded  by  a  circle  of  flame,  a  kind  of  hedge  of  fire. 
Indeed,  a  combination  was  effected  between  two  ideas,  the 
idea  of  the  world-encircling  Sea  of  Death  and  the  notion 
of  the  hedge  of  fire  through  which  men  musL  pass  to  win 

1  Fenrir  and  Jormungandr,  like  the  man  and  the  serpent  whom  Dante 
saw,  seem  to  have  joined  their  beings  and  then  appeared  apart  clothed  each 
with  the  other's  proper  nature.  For  while  the  second  is  recognised  as 
the  earth-girding  river,  the  name  of  him  is  literally  '  monstrous  wolf.'  On 
the  other  hand,  Fenrir  is  shown  by  his  name  to  be  a  watery  being  (fen); 
so  that  his  name  rather  than  Jormungandr's  is  connected  with  the  earth- 
girding  river,  which  notwithstanding  the  other  personifies.  «  Fenrir  ' 
(Fenris)  is,  I  believe,  connected  etymologically  with  the  Sanskrit  Pams. 
The  Parcis  were  water  beings,  perhaps  originally  not  unlike  Ahi  and  Vritra, 
the  great  Vedic  serpents. 


THE  BELT  OF  FLAME.  389 

their  way  into  another  world.  The  former  image  came  to 
be  replaced  by  the  latter ;  and  men  now  imagined  a  belt 
of  flame  lying  between  them  and  Helheim.  And  as  Jo'tun- 
heim  was  in  thought  scarcely  distinguishable  from  Hel- 
heim, the  girdle  of  fire  was  made  to  surround  that  land. 

We  may  combine  this  scattered  imagery  into  one 
simple  picture,  and  see  thereby  what  an  added  gloom  and 
marvel  is  imparted  to  the  Teuton's  world  so  soon  as  we 
have  fully  realised  the  shadow  of  death  which  lay  upon 
every  side  of  it. 

The  cold  region  of  Jotunheim  was  all  around.  But  to 
appreciate  its  horrors  let  us  think  of  it  as  lying  in  the 
North,  on  the  other  side  of  an  icy  sea.  We  travel  on  and 
on ;  the  air  grows  colder  and  the  scene  more  desolate  at 
every  step.  Anon,  stretching  its  gaunt  arms  heavenward, 
we  see  the  iron  wood,  which  starts  out  in  blackness  from 
the  surrounding  snow.  From  its  recesses  come  the  dismal 
howls  of  the  witches  and  were-wolves  who  have  their  home 
therein,  the  kindred  of  Fenrir  and  of  Garni.  Then  on  to 
the  borders  of  the  wintry  sea — 'Bold  wilfbe  he  who  tries 
to  cross  those  waters.'  Its  waves  are  made  the  blacker  by 
the  floes  of  ice  which  lie  in  it. 

Somehow  the  region  beyond,  the  true  Land  of  Shades, 
cannot  be  reached  in  the  day-time — for  the  same  reason, 
doubtless,  that  in  the  belief  of  every  people  the  sun 
himself  had  to  travel  through  a  twilight  region  before 
he  quite  withdrew  from  earth ;  for  the  same  reason  that 
the  kingdom  of  Amenti,  through  which  the  soul  of  the 
Egyptian  journeyed  to  Osiris'  house,  was  a  twilight  land. 
For  so  it  is  here.  Skirnir,  the  messenger  of  Freyr,  had 
to  journey  to  the  Land  of  Shades,  when  he  went  to  seek 
out  GerS  (the  winter  earth),  who  had  been  carried  thither.1 

1  Like  Persephone.  See  last  chapter.  This  myth  is,  as  was  there  said, 
the  story  of  the  anoclos  of  Persephone  and  of  her  marriage  with  Dionysus. 
The  story  of  Freyja  and  Odhur  was  in  the  same  place  compared  with  the 
ItatJiodns  of  Persephone  and  the  sorrows  of  Demeter  for  the  loss  of  her 
daughter.  This  last  is,  of  course;  far  more  like  the  companion  history  of  Isis 
and  Osiris.  There  are  also  in  classic  mythology  stories  which  in  actual 


390  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

He  waited  till  it  was  nightfall  before  he  set  out.  First, 
knowing  that  he  had  to  ride  through  a  hedge  of  flame,  he 
had  required  that  Freyr,  the  god  who  sent  him  on  his 
message,  should  give  him  his  own  horse. 

Give  me  thy  swift  steed  then,  that  he  may  bear  me  through 
The  far  flickering  flame. 

And  afterwards  in  the  beautiful  passage  before  quoted 
he  addressed  the  horse — 

Dark  it  grows  without !     Time  I  deem  it  is 
To  fare  over  the  misty  ways. 
We  will  both  return,  or  that  all-powerful  jotun 
Shall  seize  us  both. 

To  mortal  eyes,  perhaps,  this  flame  surrounding  Jotun- 
heimar  appeared  as  the  Aurora  Borealis  lighting  up  the 
wintry  sky.  Men  gazed  upon  the  shooting  fires  as  they 
shone  upon  the  horizon,  and  shuddering  they  thought  of 
how  their  souls*  might  need l  one  day  to  pass  that  awful 
barrier  and  wander  into  the  dark,  cheerless  region  beyond. 
According  to  the  fancy  of  the  moment,  this  hedge  of  flame 
could  be  pictured  as  surrounding  all  Jotunheimar,  or  only 
some  particular  giant's  house.  This  latter  notion  is  the 
one  most  commonly  presented  to  us  in  the  Eddas.  But 
when  this  is  the  case  the  giant's  house  becomes  ipso  facto 
the  House  of  Death,  and  the  giant,  whatever  his  name,  is 
himself  transformed  into  King  Death.  The  mythic  fire 
is  recognised  as  the  fire  of  the  other  world,  or,  as  it  is 

form  more  nearly  represent  che  myth  of  Freyja  and  Odhur  than  does  the 
tale  of  the  parting  of  Demeter  and  Persephone— for  example,  the  history  of 
the  loves  and  sorrows  of  Amor  and  Psyche,  which  again  corresponds  to  the 
Indian  myth  of  Urvasi  and  Pururavas  (see  last  chapter),  and  in  a  remoter 
degree  to  that  of  Zeus  and  Semele  (see  Liebricht  in- the  Zeitsch,  f.  v.  Sp. 
xviii.  56).  All  these  stories,  however,  are  less  intimately  connected  with 
the  chthonic  divinities  than  are  the  histories  of  Demeter  and  Persephone" 
or  of  Freyja  and  Odhur. 

1  Might  tieed.  Whether  they  in  reality  would  need  to  do  this  depended, 
as  they  deemed,  upon  their  being  elected  among  the  band  of  Einheriar 
(heroes),  who  were  after  death  translated  to  Valholl. 


SIGBUX  AND   HELGI.  391 


generally   called,   the    out-  world    or    outward    ( 

fire.     And  when  the  flame  is  personified  the  proper  name 

for   the   personification  must    be    tTtgar^loki,  Out-world 

Loki. 

Still  onward,  and  we  come  to  the  very  House  of  Death, 
guarded  by  the  two  dogs  whom  we  know  so  well  in  Indian 
mythology.  At  the  entrance  to  Helheim,  at  the  '  eastern 
gate,'  as  it  seems,  sits  in  a  cave  Angrbodha,  the  wife  of 
Loki  a.nd  the  mother  of  Hel  ;  she  sits  there  in  a  cave  or  in 
a  tomb.  Then  past  that  gate  we  reach  the  court  of  Hel 
herself. 

In  the  Eddas  many,  both  of  gods  and  men,  make  their 
way  to  these  abodes  of  death.  Some  come  back  again; 
but  some,  both  of  gods  and  men,  never  return.  We  will 
take  tlie  chief  among  these  in  the  order  of  their  import- 
ance —  that  is,  of  the  amount  of  knowledge  which  they 
impart  to  us  concerning  the  other  world. 

The  first  story  which  I  shall  take  leaves  us  even  at  the 
end  still  but  at  the  entry  of  the  tomb  ;  but,  at  all  events, 
it  shows  us  one  way  by  which  the  dead  man  went  to 
another  world,  and  it  shows  us,  too,  how  the  ghost  might 
return  to  earth.  The  images  which  are  presented  to  us 
in  this  lay  —  the  Second  Lay  of  Helgi  Hundingsbane  —  are 
not  those  which  have  been  dwelt  upon  just  now,  but 
those  connected  with  the  Bridge  of  Souls  and  the  passage 
of  the  dead  to  Paradise  by  that  road.  Helgi,  the  hero  of 
the  poem,  was  a  great  warrior  of  the  race  of  the  Yolsungs, 
and  his  wife  was  named  Sigruii.  She  was  a  Valkyria.  She 
had  been  first  betrothed  against  her  will  to  Hodbrodd, 
prince  of  Svarinshaug  ;  but  not  liking  the  match,  she  flew 
away  to  Helgi  at  Sevafjoll  and  married  him.  Helgi  lived 
not  to  be  old,  for  Dag,  the  brother  of  Sigriin,  slew  him.1 
It  happened  that  a  woman  slave  passed  one  evening  by 

1  This  is  in  effect  the  story  of  Sigurd  and  of  Siegfrit  in  the  Nibelungen. 
Helgi  seems  to  be  the  same  as  these  two  heroes.  This  poem  proves,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  the  one-eyed  Hagan  of  Troneg  is  Odhinn  ;  for  in  this 
poem  Odhinn  lends  Dag  his  spear  to  slay  Helgi. 


392  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Helgi's  tomb,  and  she  saw  his  ghost  ride  into  the  mound 
with  many  men.     Then  she  spake — 

Is  it  a  delusion,  that  which  I  ween  I  see  ? 
Is  it  the  Last  Day  ?    Dead  men  ride. 
Ye  goad  the  horses  with  your  spurs. 
Is  this  the  coming  of  heroes  to  earth  ? 

And  Helgi's  ghost  answered — 

It  is  not  a  delusion,  that  which  you  deem  you  see,     . 

Nor  the  world's  ending, 

Although  you  see  us  our  swift  horses 

Goad  with  spurs. 

To  the  heroes  is  a  home-going  granted. 

Then  the  woman  went  home  and  told  Sigrun — 

Go  hence,  Sigrun,  from  Sevafjoll, 

If  thou  wouldst  see  the  people's  prince. 

The  hill  is  open  ;  out  has  come  Helgi : 

Their  spurs  bleed.     The  prince  prays  for  thee, 

To  stanch  for  him  his  bleeding  wound. 

Then  Sigrun  went  to  the  hill  to  Helgi,  and  spake — 

Now  am  I  fain  to  find  thee  again, 

As  Odhinn's  hawks  are  to  find  their  food, 

When  they  scent  the  smell  of  corpses  and  warm  blood, 

Or,  drenched  with  dew,  the  dawning  day  descry. 

Now  will  I  kiss  the  lifeless  king, 

Ere  thou  cast  off  thy  bloody  byrnie. 

Thy  hair  is  clotted,  Helgi,  with  sweat  of  death ; 

The  chieftain  is  steeped  in  corpse  dew. 

Ice  cold  are  the  hands  of  Hogni's  child ; 

Who  shall  for  thee,  king,  the  blood  fine  pay  ? 

Helgi  speaks — 

Thou,  Sigrun  of  Sevafjoll, 

Now  becomest  the  bane  of  Helgi ; 

Thou  weepest,  golden  one,  cruel  tears, 


HELGI'S  GHOST.  393 

Sunny  one,  southern  one,  ere  to  sleep  thou  goest ; 
Each  one  falls  bloody  on  the  hero's  breast, 
Ice  cold,  piercing,  sorrow-laden.1 

Well  shall  we  drink  a  precious  draught ; 
Together  we  have  lost  life-joy  and  lauds. 
No  one  shall  sing  o'er  me  a  funeral  song, 
Though  on  my  bosom  wounds  he  may  behold. 
Here  are  brides  in  the  hill  hidden ; 
Kings'  daughters  beguile  me,  who  am  dead. 

Sigrun  prepared  a  bed  on  the  mound,  and  spake — 

Here  have  I,  Helgi,  for  thee  a  bed  made, 
A  painless  one,  0  son  of  Ylfing ! 
And  I  will  sleep,  prince,  in  thy  arms, 
As  by  my  king  while  living  I  would  lie. 

Helgi— 

No  one  now  shall  deem  us  hopeless, 

Early  or  late  in  Sevafjoll ; 

For  thou  f-leepest  in  my  arms, 

Fair  one,  Hogni's  daughter, 

In  the  hill; 

For  thon  art  quick  [I  dead],  king's  daughter  ! 

Time  it  is  for  me  to  ride  the  ruddy  road, 
And  my  pale  horse  to  tread  the  path  of  flight ; 
I  to  the  west  must  go,  o'er  Wind-helm's  Bridge, 
Before  Salgofnir  2  the  heroes  awakens. 

Helgi  rode  his  way,  and  the  women  went  home. 
Another  night  Sigrun  bade  her  maid  keep  watch  by  the 
bill;  and  at  sunset  Sigrun  came  to  the  hill,  and  spake — 

Now  would  come,  if  he  were  minded, 

Sigmund's  son  from  Odhinn's  hall ; 

Of  the  hero's  return  the  hope  I  deem  dwindles. 

On  the  ash's  boughs  the  eagles  sit, 

And  to  the  dreaming- stead  3  all  men  betake  them. 

1  That  is  to  say,  her  tears  were  cruel  because  they  pierced  him  like  drops 
of  ice.  A  common  belief  this,  that  the  tears  of  a  wife  give  physical  torture 
to  the  beloved  one  in  his  grave. 

8  '  Hall-gaper,'  a  mythic  cock ;  probably  the  cock  who  crows  over  Valholl 
before  Ragnarok.  See  infra.  8  The  place  of  dreams. 


394  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

The  maid — 

Be  not  so  rash  as  to  go, 

0  king's  daughter,  to  the  dead  men's  honse 

Stronger  are  at  nightfall 

The  ghosts  of  heroes  than  by  day. 

'  Sigrun  was  short-lived,  from  hurt  and  grief.  It  was 
believed  by  our  fore-elders  that  men  were  born  again,  but 
that  they  now  call  an.  old  wives'  tale.  He  was  Helgi, 
Hading's  hero,  and  she  Kara,  Halfdan's  daughter,  as  is 
sung  in  the  lays  of  Kara.  She  was  a  Valkyria.' 

• 

We  have  already  seen  Skirnir  start  out  upon  his 
mission  to  the  flame-girt  house  in  which  the  maiden  GerS 
lay  imprisoned.  The  house  was  the  house  of  Gymir. 
When  Skirnir  arrived  there  he  found  fierce  dogs  at  the 
door  within  the  hedge,1  which  protected  Gerd's  hall.  He 
rode  to  where  a  cowherd  sat  upon  a  hill,  and  spake  to 
him — 

Tell  me,  cowherd,  who  on  this  hill  sittest 
And  watchest  the  ways, 

How  may  I  come  to  speak  with  the  fair  maiden, 
Past  these  dogs  of  G^  mir  ? 

The  cowherd's  answer  is  noticeable  as  expressing  the 
nature  of  the  place  which  Skirnir  had  come  to- 
Art  thou  at  death's  door,  or  dead  already  ? 
Ever  shalt  thou  remain  lacking  of  speech 
With  Gymir 's  godlike  maiden. 

Then  GerS  heard  Skirnir's  voice.  She  sent  a  maid 
forth  to  bid  him  enter  the  hall.  At  first  she  refused  to 
grant  the  prayer  of  Freyr,  but  at  last  she  yielded  to  the 
instance  of  Skirnir.  The  earth  at  length  grew  green  before 
the  heat  of  the  sun's  rays. 

Another  story  which  seems  to  enclose  the  same  ger- 

1  Notice  for  future  use  the  fact  that  Gymir's  house  is  surrounded  by  a 
hedge  as  well  as  by  a  circle  of  flame. 


FIOLSVITH  AND  VINDKALD.  395 

minal  idea — in  fact,  tlie  same  nature  myth  as  the  story  of 
Ger3 — is  that  told  in  the  Lay  of  Fiolsvith.  Fiolsvith  is 
a  devil's  porter  like  G^mir.  The  maiden  whom  he  wards 
is  called  Menglod.1  By  Fiolsvith's  side  are  two  fierce  dogs, 
called  Gifr  and  Geri.  The  lay  tells  how  this  giant  porter, 
looking  out  into  the  night,  saw  approaching  the  lover  of 
Menglod,  who  came  disguised  under  the  name  of  Vind- 
kald.2 

From  the  outer  ward  he  saw  one  ascending 
To  the  seat  of  the  giant  race. 

And  so  he  cried  out — 

On  the  moist  ways  hie  thee  off  hence  ; 

Here,  wretch,  it  is  no  place  for  thee. 

• 

What  monster  is  it  before  the  entrance  standing, 
And  hovering  round  the  dangerous  flame  ? 

After  awhile  the  wanderer  and  the  warder  fell  into 
talk,  and  the  former  asked  of  the  latter  many  things 
concerning  the  house  before  which  he  was  standing.  The 
significance  of  some  of  the  things  is  quite  lost  to  us ;  but 
there  is  enough  left  to  show  that  there  was  some  mysterious 
importance  which  attached  to  what  they  spoke  of.  Many 
of  the  names  mentioned  have  connection  with  Eagnarok, 
the  Gods'  Doom ; 3  and  I  should  not  wonder  if  all  the  things 

1  Menglod  means  '  glad  in  a  necklace  '  (men).  It  is  evidently  another 
name  for  Freyja,  who  wears  the  famous  Brising  necklace  (Brisinga  men). 
Freyja  is  GerS  (Chapter  VII.)  Menglod  may  have  been,  like  Persephone, 
sometimes  a  Queen  of  Death.  She  is  so,  I  think,  in  the  Grougaldr,  where 
the  son  says  to  his  mother  (step-mother  ?),  Groa — 

'  A  hateful  snare  thou,  cunning  one,  didst  lay 

When  thou  badest  me  go  Menglod  to  meet,' 

which  is  to  be  interpreted  that  this  witch  step-mother  had  sent  her  son  to 
his  death  (to  meet  Menglod),  and  afterwards  finds  him  at  her  own  tomb. 
See  Grougaldr. 

2 '  Wind  cold.'  I  suppose  as  Vindkald  he  is  the  winter  sun,  which 
cannot  get  sight  of  Freyja  (the  germ).  As  Svipdag,  '  Swoop  of  Day,'  he  is 
the  summer  sun.  Originally  this  was  a  day  myth. 

8  The  things  chiefly  spoken  of  are  :  1.  The  world  tree,  and  what  is  to  be 


396  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

enumerated  were  associated  with  the  under  world.  At  last 
it  was  made  known  that  the  wanderer  was  Svipdag,  the 
betrothed  of  Menglod.  The  iron  doors  flew  open  and  let 
him  in.  This  is  like  the  '  swoop  of  day '  after  night  has 
passed. 

These  are  but  slight  notices  of  the  under  world.  More 
vivid  and  more  detailed  is  the  history  of  Odhinn's  descent 
to  Hel,  to  enquire  of  the  wise  Vala,  whose  tomb  stood  at 
Hel's  gate,  touching  the  impending  fate  of  Balder.1  The 
Msir  and  the  Asyniur  (goddesses)  were  in  council  how 
they  might  avert  the  evil  which  seemed  to  hang  over  the 
beloved  Balder,  and  which  was  forewarned  to  him  in  dreams. 
So  Odhinn  determined  to  make  "this  journey  to  the  house 
of  Hel.2 

Then  the  Allfather  saddled  his  horse  Sleipnir  and  rode 
down  to  Niflhel  (Mist-hell). 

He  met  a  qjog  from  Hel  coming ; 
Blood-stained  it  was  upon  its  breast. 
Slaughter-seeking  seemed  its  gullet  and  its  lower  jaw. 
It  bayed  and  gaped  wide  ; 
At  the  sire  of  magic  song 
Long  it  howled. 

Onward  he  rode — the  earth  echoed — 
Till  to  the  high  Hel's  house  he  came. 
Then  rode  the  god  to  the  eastern  gate, 
Where  he  knew  there  was  a  Vala's  grave. 
To  the  wise  one  began  he  his  charms  to  chaunt, 
Till  she  uprose  perforce,  and  death-  like  words  she  spake. 
'  Say,  what  man  of  men,  to  me  unknown, 
Trouble  has  made  for  me,  and  my  rest  destroyed : 
Snow  has  snowed  o'er  me !  rain  has  rained  upon  me  ! 
Dew  has  bedewed  me  !    I  have  long  been  dead.' 

its  en<L  This  will  only  happen  at  Ragnarok.  2.  The  golden  cock  Vidofnir, 
which  is,  I  imagine,  the  cock  which  crows  at  Ragnarok  (Voluspd).  3.  A 
heavenly  mountain,  Hyfjaberg.  4.  The  maidens  (Norns  ?)  who  sit  by 
Menglod's  knees.  i  VegtamskviSa. 

This  poem,  the  Vegtamskvi-Sa,  is  probably  familiar  to  most  readers  in 
the  form  m  which  it  has  been  rendered  by  Grey  under  the  title  of  the 
« Descent  of  Odin.' 


THE  DESCENT   OF  ODHINN.  397 

He  answered — 

I  am  named  Yegtam,  and  am  Yaltam's  son : 
Tell  thou  me  of  Hel ;  I  am  from  Mannheim. 
For  whom  are  the  benches  with  rings  bedecked, 
And  the  glittering  beds  with  gold  adorned  ? 

She  spake  again — 

Here  is  for  Balder  the  mead-cup  brewed, 
Over  the  bright  beaker  the  cover  is  laid ; 
But  all  the  ^Bsir  are  bereft  of  hope. 
Perforce  have  I  spoken  ;  I  will  now  be  silent. 

The  dialogue  continues  upon  matters  relating  to  the 
approaching  death  of  Balder,  and  ends  thus.  She  said — 

Not  Yegtam  art  thon,  as  once  I  weened,          , 
But  rather  Odhinn,  the  all- creator. 

And  he  answered — 

Thou  art  no  Yala  nor  wise  woman, 
The  mother  rather  of  three  thursar. 

Who  are  these  three  thursar  (giants)  P  Who  else  can 
they  be  than  that  mighty  trinity  Fenrir,  Jormungandr, 
and  Hel?  This  supposed  Yala  must  be  Angrbodha,  the 
wife  of  Loki. 

We  have  now  passed  through  all  the  stages  which  were 
necessary  to  show  us  the  way  to  the  Norseman's  under 
world.  We  have  seen  the  ghost  come  from  out  of  the 
mouth  of  the  grave,  and  then  enter  it  again.  We  have 
ridden  down  the  dark  valley  which  leads  from  that  grave- 
mouth  to  the  nether  kingdom ;  we  have  met  the  fierce 
hell-hound  coming  towards  us,  blood-stained  on  mouth 
and  breast.  Farther  on  we  have  ridden,  and  have  found 
at  the  eastern  gate  of  Mist-hell  a  Yala's  grave,  and  in  this 
Yala  we  have  recognised  the  very  mother  of  the  Queen  of 
the  Dead.  We  shall  have  anon  to  penetrate  Hel's  own 
house. 

But  before  we  do  this  we  will  turn  to  a  story  of  a 


398  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

descent  to  the  nether  world,  in  which  the  characteristic 
features  of  that  place  are  represented  in  rather  a  different 
guise  from  the  ordinary  one,  and  of  which,  on  account  of 
this  variation,  the  true  meaning  has  been  obscured  by  time. 

We  have  already  told  the  incidents  of  this  story ;  for 
it  is  the  history  of  Thorr's  journey  to  the  house  of  tJt- 
gardhloki.  But  because  we  were  not  then  concerned  with 
the  myths  of  death  I  did  not  stay  to  point  out  its  full 
significance.  It  requires,  however,  no  greafc  penetration  to 
discover  that  this  tTtgardhloki  is  nothing  else  than  one  of 
the  forms  of  the  god  Loki,  who  we  know  generally  per- 
sonifies the  funeral  fire.  The  Utgardhloki  of  this  myth  is 
simply  that  fire  expanded  into  a  hedge  of  flame  surrounding 
the  world  of  death,  and  that  again  personified  as  a  being, 
a  King  of  Death.  IJtgardhloki  is  the  personification  of 
the  fire  which  the  porter  in  the  Fiolsvinnsmal  had  around 
him  in  his  outer  ward,  or  that f  far  flickering  flame '  through 
which  Skirnir  rode. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  journey  of  Thorr  to 
tTtgardhloki's  hall  is  so  much  like  the  descent  of  Herakles 
to  the  house  of  Pluto ;  though  there  is  this  great  difference 
between  the  two  myths,  that  the  Greek  hero  is  always 
victorious,  while  the  Norse  god  is  by  no  means  victorious. 
Each  one  among  the  feats  which  Thorr  performs  in 
iTtgardhloki's  palace  is  appropriate  to  the  place  and  the 
occasion ;  each  is  in  reality  a  contest  with  death  in  one  of 
its  forms,  death  represented  by  one  among  the  children 
of  Loki.  The  first  attempt  of  Thorr  was  to  drain  a  horn  ; 
but  in  doing  that  he  was  really  draining  the  sea,  and  in 
fact  the  Sea  or  Eiver  of  Death.  Wherefore  this  wa,s  in 
reality  a  contest  with  Jormungandr,  who  is  the  Sea  or 
Eiver  of  Death.  The  second  was  the  endeavour  to  lift  up 
tTtgardhloki's  cat,  which  turned  out  to  be  really  Jormun- 
gandr, the  Midgard  worm,  himself.  This  scene  reminds 
us  of  Heracles  bringing  Cerberus  from  the  under  world.1 

^  *  It  should  be  remembered  that  this  among  the   « twelve  labours '  of 
Heracles  is  the  only  one  known  to  Homer.     It  is  evident  that  the  descent 


THE  DESCENT   OF  THORK.  399 

Cerberus  corresponds  most  nearly  to  Fenrir ;  so  we  may 
imagine  Thorr's  struggle  with  this  cat  to  have  been  ori- 
ginally a  struggle  with  Fenrir.  Fenrir  and  Jormungandr 
are  continually  exchanging  their  natures.1  Each  one  of 
these  accounts  has,  as  I  imagine,  been  perverted  from  its 
original  form  by  the  fancy  of  an  age  to  which  all  the  deeper 
meaning  of  the  myths  had  become  obscured.  But  of  all  the 
three  the  story  of  the  third  contest  has  suffered  the  most 
vital  change.  In  the  story,  as  we  now  read  it,  a  wrestling 
bout  takes  place  between  Thorr  and  an  old  woman  called 
Elli-*-fchat  is  to  say,  Eld.  But  this  is  a  fanciful  idea ;  the 
personification  of  Old  Age  is  not  a  notion  characteristic  of 
a  period  of  genuine  mythic  creation.  It  is  most  probable 
that  the  old  dame  was  at  first  Hel,  the  daughter  "of  Loki 
(i.e.  of  Otgardhloki).  So  that  the  three  battles  of  the  god 
were  with  the  three  children  of  the  death  giant,  to  whose 
house  he  came.  The  wrestle  of  Thorr  and  Hel  is  exactly 
parallel  to  the  fight  of  Heracles  and  Thanatos,  of  which 
Euripides  speaks.2  This,  it  has  been  shown,  is  one  form 
.of  an  ancient  legend. 

The  journey  of  Thorr  to  tTtgardhloki  is  therefore  the 
second  story  of  the  descent  of  one  among  the  j3Esir  to  the 
lower  world,  the  first  being  the  descent  of  Odhinn, 
commemorated  in  the  Vegtamskvr£a. 

The  third  history  is  far  more  interesting  and  important 
than  the  other  two,  being  the  descent  of  Balder  to  Hel- 
heim.  In  this  the  gloom  deepens  gr^itly.  The  o.ther  two 
gods  only  went  down  for  a  time.  Odhinn  came  back  with 
a  certain  measure  of  success ;  for  he  had,  at  any  rate, 
gained  the  information  which  he  went  to  seek.  Thorr 

of  the  hero  into  the  nether  world  was  the  incident  in  his  history  which 
was  most  essential  to  his  character.  We  know  too  that  Heracles  fought 
with  Hades  himself,  and  'brought  grief  into  the  realm  of  shades.'  The 
struggle  of  Heracles  and  Thanatos,  which  will  be  presently  compared  with 
one  of  the  '  labours '  of  Thorr,  is  only  another  form  of  the  same  idea. 
Lastly,  Homer  knows  of  a  fight  between  Heracles  and  a  sea  monster. 
Therefore  the  three  labours  of  the  Norse  god  are  represented  by  three  of 
the  oldest  labours  of  the  Greek  hero. 

1  Supra,  p.  388,  note.  2  Alkestis. 


400  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

returned  back  defeated;   but  these  two  both  did  return* 
Balder  went  to  Helheim  and  returned  not. 

The  whole  story  is  told  in  Snorri's  Edda  (Dsemisaga  49), 
and  is  briefly  this.  It  happened  that  Balder  the  Good 
dreamt  a  heavy  dream,  which  was  told  to  the  JEsir, 
whereon  when  they  had  taken  the  auguries  the  responses 
were  that  Balder  was  destined  for  death.  Then  went  all 
the  gods  (^Esir)  and  goddesses  (Asynior)  to  counsel  how 
they  might  avert  this  calamity  from  gods  and  men.  And 
Frigg  took  an  oath  from  fire  and  water,  from  iron  and  all 
metals,  from  stones,  from  earths,  and  from  diseases,  from 
beasts,  birds,  poisons,  and  creeping  things,  that  none  of 
them  would  do  any  harm  to  Balder.  And,  when  they  had 
all  given  oath,  it  became  a  common  pastime  with  the 
j*Esir  that  Balder  should  stand  in  the  midst  of  them,  to 
serve  as  a  mark,  at  whom  they  were  wont  some  to  hurl 
darts,  some  stones,  whilst  others  hewed  at  him  with  swords 
or  axes.  Yet,  do  what  they  would,  not  one  of  them  could 
harm  him.  And  this  was  looked  upon  among  the  -ZEsir 
as  a  great  honour  shown  to  Balder. 

But  when  Loki  the  son  of  Laufey  saw  this,  it  vexed 
him  sore  that  Balder  got  no  hurt.  Wherefore  he  took  the 
form  of  a  woman  and  came  to  Fensalir,  the  house  of 
Frigg.  Then  Frigg,  when  she  saw  the  old  dame,  asked  of 
her  what  the  JEsir  were  doing  at  their  meeting.  And  she 
said  that  they  were  throwing  darts  and  stones  at  Balder, 
yet  were  unable  to  hurt  him.  '  Aye,'  quoth  Frigg, '  neither 
metal  nor  wood  can  hurt  Balder,  for  I  have  taken  an 
oath  from  all  of  them.' 

6  What,'  said  the  dame,  ( have  then  all  things  sworn  to 
spare  Balder?'  'All  things,'  answered  Frigg,  'save  a 
little  tree  which  grows  on  the  eastern  side  of  Valholl  and 
is  called  mistletoe,  which  I  thought  too  young  and  weak  to 
ask  an  oath  of  it.' 

When  Loki  heard  this  he  went  away,  and,  taking  his 
own  shape  again,  he  cut  off  the  mistletoe  and  repaired  to 


THE  DEATH  OF  BALDER.  401 

the  place  where  the  gods  were.  There  he  found  Hotter 
standing  apart,  not  sharing  in  the  sports  on  account  of  his 
blindness  ;  and  he  went  up  to  him  and  said,  '  Why  dost 
thou  not  also  throw  something  at  Balder ?•'  'Because  Ii 
am  blind,'  said  HoSer,  'and  see  not  where  Balder  is,  and 
have  beside  nothing  to  cast  with.'  '  Come  then,'  said  Loki, 
'do  thou  like  the  rest,  and  show  honour  to  Balder  by 
throwing  this  twig  at  him,  and  I  will  direct  thine  arm 
toward  the  place  where  he  stands.' 

Then  HoSer  took  the  mistletoe,  and,  under  the  guidance 
of  Loki,  darted  it>  at  Balder ;  and  he,  pierced  through  and 
through,  dropped  down  dead.  And  never  was  seen  among 
gods  or  men  so  fell  a  deed  as  that. 

When  Balder  fell  the  JEsir  were  struck  dumb  with 
horror,  and  they  were  minded  to  lay  hands  on  him  who 
had  done  the  deed,  but  they  were  obliged  to  stay  their 
vengeance  from  respect  to  the  Peace-stead  where  the  deed 
was  done.  .  .  . 

....  Then  the  Msir  took  the  body  of  Balder  and  bore 
it  to  the  shore.  There  stood  Balder 's  ship  Hringhorni 
(the  Disk  of  the  Sun),  which  passed  for  the  largest  in  the 
world.  But  when  they  would  have  launched  it  to  set 
Balder's  funeral  pile  thereon,  they  could  not.  Where- 
fore they  called  out  of  Jotunheim  a  giantess  named  Hyr- 
rokkin  (Fire  Smoke),1  who  came  riding  upon  a  wolf,  with 
serpents  for  reins.  And  as  soon  as  she  had  alighted  Odhinn 
ordered  four  berserkir  to  hold  her  steed  fast,  but  this  they 
could  not  do  till  they  had  thrown  the  animal  upon  the 
ground.  Hyrrokkin  then  went  to  the  prow  of  the  ship,  and 
with  one  push  set  it  afloat,  and  with  such  force  that  fire 
sparkled  from  the  rollers  and  the  earth  shook  all  around. 
Thorr,  enraged  at  this  sight,  grasped  his  mallet,  and,  save 
for  the  jiEsir,  would  have  broken  the  woman's  skull. 

Then  was  Balder's  body  borne  to  the  funeral  pile,  and 
when  his  wife  Nanna,  the  daughter  of  Nep,  saw  it,  her 

1  She  is  another  embodiment  of  the  funeral  nre. 
D    D 


402  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

heart  brake  with  grief,  and  she  too  was  laid  upon  the  pyre. 
Thorr  then  stood  up  and  hallowed  the  pile,  and  therewith 
he  kicked  a  dwarf  named  Litr,  who  ran  before  his  feet,  into 
the  fire.  And  many  people  from  all  parts  came  to  the 
burning  of  Balder.  First  to  name  is  Odhinn,  with  Frigg 
and  the  Yalkyriur  and  his  ravens.  And  Freyr  came  in 
his  car  yoked  to  the  boar  Gullinbursti  or  SlrSrugtanni. 
Heimdalr  rode  on  his  horse  Gulltoppr,  and  Freyja  came 
drawn  by  her  cats.  And  many  folk  of  the  rime  giants 
and  hill  giants  came  too.  Odhinn  laid  on  the  pile  the 
gold  ring  named  Draupnir,  which  since  that  time  has 
acquired  the  property  of  producing  every  ninth  night 
eight  rings  of  equal  weight.  Balder's  horse  was  led  to  the 
pyre  and  burnt  with  all  its  trappings. 

Meanwhile  Odhinn  had  determined  to  send  his  mes- 
senger HermoSr  to  pray  Hel  to  set  Balder  free  from 
Helheim.  For  nine  days  and  nine  nights  Hermo'Sr  rode 
through  valleys  dark  and  deep,  where  he  could  see  nought 
until  he  came  to  the  river  Gjoll,  over  which  he  rode  by 
Gjoll's  bridge,  which  was  roofed  with  gold.1  A  maiden, 
called  Modgudr,2  kept  that  path.  She  enquired  of  him  his 
name  and  kin,  for  she  said  that  yestereve  five  bands  of  dead 
men  rid  over  the  bridge,  yet  did  they  not  shake  it  so  much 
as  he  had  done.  'But/  said  she,  '  thou  hast  not  death's 
hue  on  thee.  Why  then  ridest  thou  here  on  Hel's  way  ?  ' 

6 1  ride  to  Hel,'  answered  Hermo^r,  *  to  seek  Balder. 
Hast  thou  perchance  seen  him  on  this  road  of  Death  ?  ' 

6  Balder,'  answered  she, '  hath  ridden  over  Gjoll's  bridge. 
But  yonder  northward  lieth  the  way  to  He!.'  .  .  . 

Hermodhr  then  rode  on  to  the  palace,  where  he  found 
his  brother  Balder  filling  the  highest  place  in  the  hall,  and 
in  his  company  he  passed  the  night.  The  next  morning 
he  besought  Hel  that  she  would  let  Balder  ride  home  with 

1  Treasures  of  metal  belong  to  the  under  world.     So  the  Persian  Yama 
is  a  god  of  treasure,  and  so  is  Plouton,  who  is  not  to  be  distinguished 
essentially  from  Ploutos  (see  Chap.  V.,  also  Preller,  G.  M.,  Demeter,  &c.) 

2  Soul's  Fight. 


THE  DEATH   OF  BALDER.  403 

him,  assuring  her  how  great  the  grief  was  among  the  gods, 
Hel  answered,  '  It  shall  now  be  proved  whether  Balder  be 
so  much  loved  as  thou  sayest.  If  therefore  all  things', 
both  living  and  lifeless,  mourn  for  him,  then  shall  he  fare 
back  to  the  ^Esir.  But  if  one  thing  only  refuse  to  weep, 
lie  shall  remain  in  Helheim.' 

Then  Hermodhr  rose,  and  Balder  led  him  from  the 
hall  and  gave  him  the  ring  Draupnir,  to  give  it  as  a 
keepsake  to  Odhinn.  Nanna  sent  Frigg  a  linen  veil  and 
other  gifts,  and  to  Fulla  a  gold  finger  ring.  HermoSr 
then  rode  back  to  Asgard  and  gave  an  account  of  all  he 
had  seen  and  heard.  And  when  Hermodhr  had  delivered 
Hel's  answer,  the  gods  sent  off  messengers  throughout  the 
world  to  beg  everything  to  weep,  in  order  that  Balder 
might  be  delivered  out  of  Helheim.  All  things  freely 
complied  with  this  request,  both  men  and  every  other 
living  being,  and  earths  and  stones  and  trees  and  metals, 
c  just  as  thou  hast  no  doubt  seen  these  things  weep  when 
they  are  brought  from  a  cold  place  into  a  hot  one.'  As 
the  messengers  were  returning,  and  deemed  that  their 
mission  had  been  successful,  they  found  an  old  hag  named 
Thokk  sitting  in  a  cavern,  and  her  they  prayed  to  weep 
Balder  out  of  Helheim.  But  she  said — 

Thokk  will  weep  with  dry  tears 

Over  Balder's  bale. 

Nor  quick  nor  dead  for  the  carl's  son  care  I ; 

Let  Hel  hold  her  own. 

The  nature  myth  out  of  which  this  story  has  grown  is 
very  easily  traced.  Balder  is  the  sun  ;  his  ship  Hring- 
horni  is  the  sun's  disk,  and  as  it 'floats  out  into  the  west 
it  shows  the  picture  of  a  burning  sunset.  After  awhile 
out  of  the  day  myth  sprang  the  myth  of  the  year. 
Balder's  Bale  commemorates  the  death  of  the  summer,  or 
the  actual  descent  of  the  sun  for  some  weeks'  or  months' 
duration  into  the  realm  of  darkness;  a  phenomenon 
known  only  in  Northern  lands.  The  witch  Thokk  sitting 


404  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

there  in  her  cave  is  undoubtedly  the  same  whom  we  have 
met  many  times  at  the  eastward  entry  of  hell.  She  was 
•originally  simply  the  darkness— the  same  as  Dokkr,  dark.1 
So  Shelley  sings — 

Swiftly  walk  over  the  western  wave, 

Spirit  of  night, 

Oat  of  the  misty  eastern  cave. 

Being  originally  no  more  than  a  nature  myth,  the  story 
of  Balder's  death  came  in  time  to  exercise  a  most  import- 
ant influence  upon  men's  beliefs  concerning  death  and  the 
future. 

In  the  story  as  it  has  just  been  related  the  hope  which 
was  for  a  little  while  held  out  of  Balder's  again  returning 
to  earth  was  defeated  through  the  machinations  of  Loki. 
But  I  do  not  fancy  that  it  was  by  most  people  thought 
that  Balder  stayed  in  Helheim  for  ever.  In  the  Voluspa, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  there  is  the  prophecy  of  a  new 
world  which  is  to  follow  the  destruction  of  the  old  world 
at  Ragnarok ;  and  to  that  new  world  it  is  said  Balder  shall 
return,  to  reign  supreme  in  it.  True,  it  is  likely  that 
these  concluding  verses  of  the  Volupsa  have  been  written 
under  the  influence  of  Christian  ideas ;  but  even  so  they 
point  to  some  early  foundation  for  the  belief  that  Balder 
would  reign  as  the  king  of  paradise.2  There  must  have 
been  some  legend  which  made  Balder,  like  others,  sail 
away  to  a  land  of  the  blessed  beyond  the  western  horizon 
and  the  kingdom  of  shades.  It  was,  we  may  well  sup- 
pose, in  virtue  of  some  such  belief  that  there  arose  the 
custom  of  burning  the. hero  in  a  ship,  in  the  same  way 
that  Balder  was  burned  in  Hrinofhorni.  Before  historic 

O 

times,  however,  the  meaning  of  this  rite  had  'been  generally 
forgotten,  and  scattered  remains  of  it  only  survived. 

1  That  is  to  say,  the  name  has  probably /been  changed  from  Do'kkr  to 
pokk.t/umfo,  in  obedience  to  an  allegorising  spirit  like  that  which  changed 
Hel  into  Elli. 

2  See  also  next  chapter. 


NORSE  FUNERAL  RITES.  405 

Yet  the  very  fragmentariness  of  these  remains  is  the 
best  witness  we  could  wish  for  to  the  importance  once 
attaching  to  rituals  which  commemorated  the  burial  of 
Balder.  For  example,  we  find  in  historic  times  that  men 
were  often  buried  in  a  ship — that  is  to  say,  in  a  coffin 
made  in  the  shape  of  a  ship.  Not  many  years  ago  was 
unearthed  from  a  Norwegian  burial  ground  a  large  vessel 
which  had  served  as  a  resting-place  for  the  dead.  Of 
course  to  use  the  vessel  in  this  way  was  to  defeat  the  very 
purpose  for  which  the  ship  had  been  at  first  called  into 
requisition  ;  for  the  body,  when  buried,  could  not  sail  away 
in  the  track  which  Balder  had  made.  But  the  use  of  this 
form  of  coffin  shows  that  men  had  once  understood  the 
meaning  of  laying  the  dead  man  in  his  ship.  It  shows 
incidentally  this  also :  that  the  belief  commemorated  in 
the  story  of  Balder's  bale  belongs  to  a  date  earlier  than 
the  date  of  this  use  of  the  ship  as  a  coffin. 

It  is  highly  interesting  to  find,  in  the  accounts  of  a 
traveller  among  certain  Northern  Teutons  in  .the  t^nth 
century,  the  description  of  a  funeral  which  is  evidently  a 
close  copy  of  the  funeral  of  Balder,  with  just  such  an 
omission  or  change  of  one  or  two  features  in  it  as  may 
serve  to  show  that  the  funeral  rites  in  question  had  been 
long  in  use,  and  had  had  time  to  degenerate  here  and  there 
into  empty  forms. 

The  account  to  which  I  refer  is  in  the '  Kitab  el  Meshalik 
wa-1  Memalik'  ('Book  of  Roads  and  Kingdoms')  of  the  Arab 
traveller  Ibn  Haukal.  The  book  was  written  during  the 
tenth  century  :  the  Arab's  travels,  I  believe,  extend  from 
A.D.  942  to  976.  The  people  whom  Ibn  Haukal  visited 
were  the  Russ  or  Varings,  dwelling  in  the  centre  of  Russia 
(near  Kief),  to  which  country  they  have  bequeathed  their 
name.  For  all  that  they  were  a  Gothic  and  not  a  Slavonic 
race. 

In  his  description  of  the  funerals  of  these  Russ,  Ibn 
.Haukal  has  first  to  tell  us  that  the  bodies  even  of  the  poor 
were  Iturmd  in  a  ship  made  for  that  purpose;  those  of 


406  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  slaves  were  abandoned  to  dogs  and  birds  of  prey ;  that 
the  Russ  were  wont  to  burn  their  dead  with  the  horses, 
arms,  and  precious  metals  which  belonged  to  them;  and 
that  (  if  the  dead  was  married  they  burned  alive  with  him 
his  wives.1  The  women  themselves  desired  to  follow  their 
husbands  onto  the  pyre,  thinking  that  they  went  with 
them  to  Paradise.' 

The  narrative  then  proceeds,  c  As  I  had  heard  that  at 
the  deaths  of  their  chiefs  the  Russ  did  even  more  than  to 
burn  them,  I  was  anxious  to  see  their  funeral  rites.  I  soon 
heard  that  they  were  going  to  render  the  last  duties  to  a 
rich  merchant,  who  had  died  not  long  before.  The  body 
of  the  defunct  was  first  placed  in  a  ditch,  where  it  was  left 
ten  days.  This  interval  was  employed  in  making  him  new 
robes.  His  property  was  divided  into-  three  parts :  one 
part  passed  to  his  family  ;  the  second  was  spent  on  his 
robes,  and  the  third  in  the  purchase  of  drink  to  be  con- 
sumed at  the  funeral ;  for  the  Russ  are  very  much  given 
to  strong  drink,  and  some  die  with  a  flask  in  their  hands. 
Then  the  family  asked  of  the  slaves  of  both  sexes,  "  Which 
among  you  will  die  with  him  ?  "  Whoever  answers  "  I " 
cannot  go  back  from  his  word.  Generally  the  female 
slaves  are  those  who  thus  devote  themselves  to  death.  In 
this  case  they  asked  the  female  slaves  of  the  dead  man 
which  of  them  chose  to  follow  him.  One  answered,  "I." 
She  was  given  into  the  charge  of  two  females,  who  were 
bidden  to  follow  her  about  everywhere  and  serve  her,  and 
who  even  washed  her  feet.  This  girl  passed  her  days  in 
pleasure,  singing  and  drinking,  while  they  were  getting 
ready  the  garments  destined  for  the  dead  and  were  making 
the  other  preparations  for  his  obsequies. 

'  The  day  fixed  for  the  funeral  was  Friday.  I  went  to 
the  bank  of  the  stream  on  which  was  the  vessel  of  the 
dead.  I  saw  that  they  had  drawn  the  ship  to  land,  and 
men  were  engaged  in  fixing  it  upon  four  stakes,  and  had 
placed  round  it  wooden  statues.  Onto  the  vessel  they, 

1  This  statement  is  only  partially  confirmed  by  what  follows. 


NOKSE  FUNEEAL  KITES.  407 

bore  a  wooden  platform,  a  mattress  and  cushions,  covered 
with  a  Roman  material  of  golden  cloth.  Then  appeared 
an  old  woman  called  the  Angel  of  Death,  who  put  all  this 
array  in  order.  She  has  the  charge  of  getting  made  the 
funeral  garments  and  of  the  other  preparations.  She,  too, 
kills  the  girl  slaves  who  are  devoted  to  death.  She  had  the 
mien  of  a  fury. 

4  When  all  was  ready  they  went  and  took  the  dead  from 
his  sepulchre ;  whence  too  they  drew  a  vase  of  spirituous 
drink,  some  fruits,  and  a  lute,  which  had  been  placed  beside 
him.  He  was  clad  in  the  robe  which  he  had  on  at  the 
moment  of  his  death.  I  noticed  that  his  skin  was  already 
livid,  owing  to  the  cold  of  this  place ;  otherwise  he  was  not 
at  all  changed.  They  clad  him  now  in  drawers,  trowsers, 
boots  and  tunic,  and  a  coat  of  cloth  of  gold ;  his  head  they 
covered  .with  a  brocaded  cap  furred  with  sable,  and  then 
they  carried  him  to  a  tent  which  had  been  erected  on  the 
ship.  He  was  seated  on  the  couch  and  surrounded  with 
cushions.  Before  him  they  placed  some  drink,  some  fruit 
and  odorous  herbs,  some  bread,  meat,  and  garlic ;  around 
him  were  ranged  all  his  weapons.  Then  they  brought  a 
dog,  cut  it  in  two,  and  threw  the  portions  into  the  ship. 
They  made  two  horses  gallop  till  they  were  covered,  with 
sweat ;  then  they  cut  them  into  pieces  with  their  sabres, 
and  they  threw  the  fragments  onto  the  vessel ;  two  oxen 
were  cut  up,  and  their  fragments  thrown  on  in  the  same 
manner.  Lastly  they  killed  a  cock  and  hen,  which  they 
threw  on  in  the  same  way.  Meanwhile  the  female  slave 
went  and  came.  I  saw  her  enter  a  tent,  where  a  man 
said  to  her  these  words  :  "  Say  to  thy  master,  I  have  done 
this  for  love  of  thee."  Towards  evening  she  was  led  to  a 
sort  of  pedestal,  newly  erected.  Onto  this  she  climbed, 
placing  her  feet  in  the  hands  of  various  men  who  stood 
round,  and  said  certain  words.  Then  they  helped  her 
down:  They  made  her  ascend  a  second  time  :  she  spoke 
some  more  words,  and  came  down  again.  She  mounted 
a  third  time,  and  when  she  had  said  some  more  words 


103  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

they  made  her  descend  once  again.  Then  they  gave  her 
a  fowl,  whose  head  she  cut  off,  and  this  she  threw  down. 
The  men  about  cast  the  body  into  the  ship.  I  asked  my 
interpreter  for  an  explanation  of  what  had  passed.  He 
said,  "  The  first  time  that  she  climbs  up  the  pedestal  she 
speaks  these  words,  'I  see  my  father  and  mother;'  the 
second  time,  'I  see  all  my  dead  re]ations  seated;'  and 
the  third  time,  '  I  see  my  master  in  Paradise,  who  is  most 
fair  and  crowned  with  green,  and  beside  him  I  see  men 
and  slaves.  He  calls  me ;  I  will  go  and  join  him/  "  Then 
they  brought  her  to  the  ship.  She  drew  off  two  bracelets 
and  gave  them  to  the  woman  called  the  Angel  of  Death. 
She  undid  the  two  rings  which  she  wore  on  her  limbs  and 
gave  them  to  the  two  slaves  who  attended  her.  Then  they 
made  her  ascend  the  ship,  and  thither  she  was  followed  by 
men  armed  with  shields  and  staves,  who  gave  her  a  vase 
of  spirituous  liquor.  She  began  to  sing  and  drink. 
The  interpreter  said  that  she  was  bidding  adieu  to 
those  dear  to  her.  They  gave  her  a  second  cup;  she 
took  it  and  began  intoning  a  long  chaunt;  but  the  old 
woman  pressed  her  to  drink  and  enter  the  tent  where 
her  master  was,  and,  as  she  hesitated,  the  old  one 
seized  her  by  the  hair  and  dragged  her  in.  Thereupon 
the  men  began  to  strike  their  staves  upon  their  shields,  to 
drown  the  cries  of  the  victim,  fearing  lest  other  women 
slaves  should  be  terrified  thereat,  which  would  prevent 
them  some  day  from  asking  to  die  with  their  masters. 
At  the  same  moment  six  men  entered  the  tent,  surrounded 
the  victim,  and  placed  her  Iving  beside  the  dead.  Two 
held  her  by  the  feet,  two  by  the  head;  'the  old  woman 
passed  a  cord  round  her  neck,  and  gave  it  to  the  two 
remaining  men  who  stood  near,  and  these  strangled  her. 
At  the  same  moment  the  old  woman,  drawing  a  large 
knife,  struck  it  into  the  wretch's  side. 

'Then  the  nearest  relative  of  the  dead  man  came 
forward  quite  naked,  set  fire  to  a  fragment  of  wood,  and 
walking  backwards  towards  the  vessel,  holding  in  one  of 


NOESE  FUNERAL  RITES.  409 

his  hands  the  kindled  wood  and  having  the  other  hand 
placed  behind  him,  set  fire  to  the  pile  under  the  ship; 
then  other  Euss  advanced,  holding  each  a  kindled  staff, 
which  they  cast  upon  the  pile.  It  took  fire,  and  the  ship 
was  soon  consumed  with  the  tent,  the  dead  man,  and  his 
woman  slave.  A  terrible  wind  which  had  arisen  stirred 
the  fire  and  increased  the  flame.' 

Not  the  least  interesting  part  in  Ibn  HaukaPs  account 
of  the  Russ  funeral  is  the  incident  with  which  it  concludes. 
'Hearing,'  says  the  Arab,  'a  Russ  speaking  to  my  in- 
terpreter, I  asked  what  he  said.  "He  says,"  was  the 
answer,  "  that  as  for  you  Arabs,  you  are  mad,  for  those 
who  are  the  most  dear  to  you  and  whom  you  honour  most 
you  place  in  the  ground,  where  they  will  become  a  prey  to 
worms;  whereas  with  us  they  are  burnt  in  an  instant, 
and  go  straight  to  Paradise."  He  added,  with  laughter, 
"  It  is  in  favour  to  the  dead  that  God  has  raised  this  great 
wind :  He  wished  to  see  him  come  to  Him  the  sooner." 
And  in  truth  an  hour  hud  not  passed  before  the  ship  was 
reduced  to  ashes.' 

Observe  that  in  the  creed  of  these  people  burning  is 
the  necessary  gate  from  earth  to  heaven;  if  a  man  is 
buried  he  falls  a  prey  to  worms  and  perishes  utterly. 

We  see  in  this  ritual  all  the  concomitants  of  the  great 
drama  of  Balder's  death.  The  old  woman  who  is  called 
by  Ibn  Haukal  the  Angel  of  Death  is  certainly  either  Hel 
herself  or  else  she  is  the  witch  Thokk  (or  Angrbodha),  who 
sits  at  the  entrance  of  the  nether  kingdom.  In  the  death 
of  the  slave  we  have  a  poor  substitute  (no  doubt  the  best 
attainable)  for  the  beautiful  incident  of  the  death  of 
Nanna,  the  wife  of  Balder.  '  And  when  Nanna  the 
daughter  of  Nep  saw  it '  (i.e.  the  funeral  pile  prepared)  '  her 
heart  brake  with  grief  and  she  too  was  placed  upon  the 
pyre.'1  The  theory  doubtless  was  that  the  slave  wife's 
heart  too  brake  just  when  she  saw  her  husband  placed 

1  Edda  Snorra,  D.  49. 


410  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

upon  his  bier ;  but,  as  the  fact  could  not  be  made  to  hold 
pace  with  the  theory,  the  girl  had  to  be  strangled  before 
she  was  burned. 

But  there  are  some  points  in  which  the  ritual  has 
decayed.  The  funeral  fire  lighted  in  the  ship  has  here 
sunk  to  be  an  unmeaning  rite ;  for  not  only  were  these 
Russ  not  settled  by  the  sea — no  longer  by  the  sea,  we  may 
say,  for  they  had  migrated  inland  from  the  Baltic  shores 
— so  that  there  could  be  no  drifting  westward  to  the 
setting  sun,  but  the  ship  was  not  even  launched  in  a  river. 
It  was  dragged  up  upon  the  bank  and  then  made  firm  with 
stakes  before  lighting.  We  may  believe  that  the  Russ 
had  carried  their  old  custom  inland  when  they  left  the 
coast.  The  very  senselessness  of  the  rite  in  this  its  later 
form  bears  witness  to  the  potency  of  the  associations  which 
had  given  it  birth  and  of  the  myth  out  of  which  it  sprang. 

The  relics  of  Balder's  bale  are  not  to  be  looked  for 
only  in  funeral  rites.  We  have  said  that  with  the  Teutons 
more  than  with  any  other  people  the  saddest  occasions 
seemed  to  exchange  places  with  times  of  festivity  and 
joy.  In  festivals  .which  lingered  long  after  the  worship 
of  Balder  had  been  forgotten  we  can  recognise  the  remains 
of  this  great  funeral  feast  of  the  sun  god.  The  later 
commemorations  were  the  St.  John's  fires,  of  which  some- 
thing has  already  been  said. 

The  celebration  of  Balder's  bale  was  to  some  extent 
confounded  with  a  feast  of  a  different  origin,  a  feast  held 
in  honour  of  the  sun ;  but  that  the  two  should  have  thus 
mingled  shows  that  Balder's  bale  fires  must  very  early 
have  been  made  occasions  of  festivity.  These  bale  fires 
were  lighted  at  Midsummer,  taking  the  moment  at  which 
the  sun  began  his  decline  to  commemorate  the  story  of  the 
sun's  death.1  On  the  same  principle  the  Teutons  chose 
the  time  of  the  year's  shortest  days  to  announce  the  advent 
of  the  new  spring,  -Wherefore  the  same  season  was  fixed 
upon  by  the  Church  to  celebrate  the  advent  of  Christ. 
1  See  p.  227. 


ST.  JOHN'S  FIKES.  411 

Though  Balder's  bale  fires  were  at  first  occasions  of  mourn- 
ing, they  very  early  took  an  opposite  character.  The 
festival  still  survives ;  it  has  lived  on  all  through  the 
Middle  Ages  to  our  own  times ;  only,  after  Christianity 
supplanted  heathenism,  the  fires,  instead  of  being  Balder's 
fires,  changed  their  name  into  the  St.  John's  fires,  feux 
de  St.  Jean,  Johannisfeuer,  which  are  known  in  the 
principal  countries  of  Europe. 

'  On  this  day,'  says  a  writer  of  the  twelfth  century,1 
describing  the  St.  John's  fires,  '  they  carry  brands  and 
torches  for  the  lighting  of  great  fires,  which  typify  the 
Saint  John,  who  was  a  light  and  a  burning  fire  and  the 
forerunner  of  the  True  Light.  In  some  places  they  roll 
wheels,  which  signifieth  that,  as  the  sun  riseth  to  the 
height  of  his  arc  and  can  then  rise  no  higher,  so  the  fame 
of  St.  John,  who  was  at  first  thought  to  be  the  Christ, 
lessened ;  according  to  the  testimony  of  his  own  words 
when  he  said,  "  He  shall  increase,  but  I  shall  decrease." 
Rather  a  strained  analogy,  as  one  must  allow  ;  and  yet  if 
we  were  to  put  Balder  back  again  in  the  place  that  had 
been  usurped  by  St.  John,  these  words  would  express,  not 
inaccurately,  the  place  which  their  ancient  sun-god  held 
in  the  hearts  of  men  who  were  Christians  but  who  still 
kept  a  kindly  memory  for  their  old  creed.  '  Balder,'  they 
might  have  said,  f  seemed  to  us  like  a  Christ  before  we 
knew  Christ ;  but  as  the  other  increased  so  his  fame  de- 
creased.' The  rolling  of  the  wheel  which  did  really,  as 
this  twelfth-century  writer  sees,  typify  the  rolling  of  the 
sun  up  to  its  highest  arc,  and  its  descent  through  heaven, 
was  far  more  appropriate  to  Balder  than  to  the  Scriptural 
St.  John  the  Baptist. 

Not  very  different  from  this  description  of  the  twelfth 
century  is  one  of  the  nineteenth.  It  is  of  the  St.  John's 
fire  at  Konz,2  on  the  Mosel,  in  the  year  1823.  Here  the 

1  Johannes  Beleth,  Summa  de  Divinis   Offitiis  (circ.  1162),  cap.  137, 
quoted  by  Grimm,  D.  M.  516. 

2  Not  far  from  Thionville,  and  then  in  French  Lorraine;  but  a  German- 
speaking  place  then  as  now. 


4.12  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

custom  was  that  every  house  should  furnish,  a  bundle  of 
straw,  which  was  carried  to  the  summit  of  a  neighbouring 
hill,  the  Stromberg,  where  in  the  evening  the  men,  old 
and  young,  assembled,  while  the  women  and  girls  stayed 
below  by  a  stream  called  Burbach.  With  the  straw  an 
immense  wheel  was  made,  with  a  strong  stake  running 
through  the  axle  and  standing  out  three  feet  on  either 
side.  What  remained  of  the  straw  was  twisted  into  brands. 
The  mayor  of  Sierck  gave  the  signal,  and  the  wheel  was 
lighted,  and  with  much  shouting  was  then  set  rolling. 
All  threw  their  brands  into  the  air.  Some  of  the  men 
remained  on  the  top ;  some  followed  the  burning  wheel 
down  the  hill  to  the  Mosel.  The  wheel  might  go  out  before 
it  reached  the  river ;  if  it  did  not,  then  men  augured  a 
good  year  for  the  vines. 

Tn  accounts  such  as  these  we  are  naturally  brought  to 
think  of  the  Eleusinian  and  Dionysiac  festivals,  or  of  the 
mystery  of  Isis  accompanied  by  a  '  throwing  of  brands.' 
Unquestionably,  in  the  ceremony  above  described,  there 
does  lurk  some  element  of  earth  worship  and  of  Dionysus 
or  wine-god  worship,  as  the  prediction  about  the  vintage 
testifies.  Interesting,  too,  is  it  to  see  in  this  case,  as  in 
so  many  others,  the  magical  element  of  the  myth  lingering 
when  the  meaning  of  it  has  been  forgotten.  Though  men 
have  quite,  or  almost  altogether,  lost  sight  of  the  connection 
between  their  fiery  wheel  and  the  sun,  they  still  keep  hold 
on  the  notion  that  the  length  of  time  during  which  the 
former  burns  will  affect  their  vine  harvest.  The  length  of 
time  during  which  the  sun  continues  to  give  out  his  heat, 
before  he  sinks  into  his  winter  sleep,  of  course  is  a  matter 
of  importance. 

In  Finistere  the  feux  de  St.  Jean  present,  or  did  pre- 
sent— for  the  writer  from  whom  I  quote  *  complains  that, 
even  at  that  time,  1835,  the  old  customs  of  Brittany  were 
rapidly  on  the  wane — a  unique  sight.  6  Cries  of  joy  are 

1  Souvestre  in  his  edition  of  Cambry's  Voyage  dans  le  Finistere. 


ST.  JOHN'S  FIEES.  413 

heard  from  every  side.  Every  promontory,  every  rock, 
every  mountain,  is  alight.  A  thousand  fires  are  burning 
in  the  open  air,  and  from  afar  off  you  may  descry  the 
shadow-like  figures  moving  round  the  fire  in  their  dance : 
one  might  fancy  it  a  dance  of  courils.1  The  fires  are  often 
lighted  by  the  priests,  who  make  processions  through  the 
villages  with  consecrated  tapers.  At  St.-Jean  du  Doigt 
an  angel  is  made  to  descend  from  the  church  tower, 
bearing  a  torch  in  his  hand.  He  sets  alight  the  principal 
fire,  which  burns  in  the  churchyard.  On  every  road  you 
meet  companies  of  maidens  coming  out  to  dance  round  the 
fires.  They  must  not  return  until  they  have  danced  round 
nine  of  these,  if  they  wish  to  be  married  within  the  twelve- 
month.' At  Brest,  again,  as  at  the  Johanhisfeuer  at  Konz, 
'people  whirled  round  torches,  to  look  like  wheels.  .  .  .' 

'  On  the  vigil  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  commonly  called 
Midsummer  Eve,'  says  Strutt,2  'it  was  usual  in  most  country 
places  for  the  inhabitants,  both  old  and  young,  to  meet 
together  and  make  merry  by  the  side  of  a  large  fire,  made 
in  the  middle  of  the  street  or  in  some  open  and  convenient 
place,  over  which  the  younger  men  frequently  leapt  by  way 
of  frolic,  and  also  exercised  themselves  with  various  sports 
and  pastimes.'  And  he  quotes  from  a  rhymed  English 
version,  made  in  the  sixteenth  century,  of  the  '  Pope's 
Kingdom,'  by  Tho.  Neogeorgius,  wherein  the  same  fes- 
tivities are  described. 

Then  doth  the  joyful  feast  of  John  the  Baptist  take  his  turne ; 
When  bonfires  great,  with  lofty  flame,  in  every  street  do  burne, 
And  younge  men  round  about  with  maides  doe  daunce  in  everie 

street, 
With  garlands  wrought  of  mother  wort,  or  else  of  vervaine  sweet. 

The  leaping  over  the  flame  recalls  the  leap  of  Skirnir 
(or  of  Sigurd,  as  we  shall  presently  see)  through  the  death 
fire.  It  is  a  sort  of  vaunt  on  the  part  of  the  youth  that 

1  A  race  of  fairies  native  in  Brittany. 

2  Sports  and  Pastimes. 


414  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Loki  has  not  yet  gotten  them.  At  Burford,  in  Oxfordshire, 
they  used  in  these  ceremonies  of  Midsummer's  Day  to  carry 
a  dragon  through  the  town,  to  which  was  added  the  image 
of  a  giant.1  In  these  we  see  Loki  and  Jormungandr. 

On  popular  tales,  from  the  great  epics  of  the  German 
race,  the  tales  of  Sigurd  and  Siegfrid  downwards,  the 
imagery  of  death,  drawn  from  the  funeral  fire,  has  left  a 
peculiarly  vivid  impress ;  and  in  these  stories,  as  in  many 
of  the  rites  above  described,  the  true  meaning  of  the  myth 
has  been  forgotten,  and  therefore  the  incidents  which 
should  have  expressed  that  meaning  exist  in  garbled  forms, 
as  survivals  only.  This  is  markedly  the  case  with  the 
Volsung.  saga.  The  story  must  once  have  been  in  part 
at  least  a  nature  myth,  being,  as  it  is  in  parts,  almost 
identical  with  the  story  of  Freyr's  (or  Skirnir's)  ride  to 
Jotunheim  to  seek  out  GerS.  In  its  present  shape  there 
is  this  difference  between  it  and  the  Ger5  myth,  that  in  the 
latter  the  meaning  of  each  element  of  the  tale  is  brought 
very  plainly  forward,  whereas  in  the  Volsung  legend  a 
great  portion  of  the  meaning  has  been  obscured  by  time, 
so  that  the  narrator  only  records  incidents  without  under- 
standing their  special  significance.  By  comparison  of  the 
two  myths — not  forgetting  the  story  of  the  Fiolsvinnsmal, 
which  we  spoke  of  above,  and  which  furnishes,  in  some 
matters,  a  link  between  the  legends  of  Skirnir  and  Sigurd 
— we  can  recast  the  history  of  Sigurd  and  Brynhild  in  its 
original  form.  We  have  seen  how  Freyr  or  Skirnir  had 
to  ride  through  the  flickering  flame  into  the  courtyard  of 
G^mir,  in  whose  house  GerS  was  for  the  time  imprisoned ; 
and  how  in  the  Fiolsvinnsmal  Svipdag  had  to  pass  through 
the  same  circle  of  flame  to  come  to  Menglod;  and  we 
know  that  without  question  this  fiery  barrier  is  symbolical 
of  the  funeral  fire — that  is,  of  death.2 

Now  read  the  description  of  Sigrdrifa  asleep  on  the 
hill  :— 

1  Strutt,  270.  8  Fafnismal,  42-4. 


SIGURD  AND  BKYNHILD.  415 

A  hall  is  on  high  Hindarfjoll ; 
With  fire  ivithout  'tis  all  surrounded. 
Mighty  lords  that  palace  builded 
Of  dire  undimmed  flame. 

I  know  that  on  the  fell  a  war  maiden  sleeps ; 

Around  her  flickers  the  linden's  bane,1 

With  his  thorn-thrust   Odhinn  through  her  weeds  has 

pierced  her, 
The  weed  of  the  maid  who  for  heroes  contended. 

The  pricking  by  Odhinn  with  a  sleep  thorn  is  really  a 
sending  into  mortal  sleep ;  for  the  thorn  had  become  an 
image  of  death  from  its  connection  with  the  funeral  pyre. 
Therefore  the  death  of  Brynhild  is  doubly  expressed  in  the 
above  passage.  Sigurd  eventually  found  Brynhild  as  he 
had  been  directed.  He  rode  up  the  Hindarfjoll  and  thence 
into  Frankland.  On  the  fells  he  saw  a  great  light,  as  if  a 
fire  were  burning  and  casting  its  light  high  up  into  the 
sky.  He  found  there  a  '  shield-burg ' 2  and  entered  it,  and 
there  he  saw  one  whom  he  took  for  a  warrior  lying  asleep 
in  complete  armour.  It  was  Brynhild  or  Sigrdrifa.  Her 
corselet  had  grown  quite  tight  upon  her  body.3  Sigurd 
ripped  it  open,  and  so  awoke  her.  After  Sigurd  had 
plighted  his  faith  to  Brynhild  he  went  to  the  court  of 
King  Griuki,  whose  wife  was  Grimhild  and  his  daughter 
Godrun.  Grimhild  gave  Sigurd  a  draught  which  made 
him  forget  his  love  and  all  his  promises.  He  then  married 
Godrun,  the  daughter  of  Giuki  and  Grimhild.  Grimhild 
now  counselled  her  son  Gunnar  to  woo  Brynhild.  Brynhild 
had  vowed  to  wed  him  only  who  could  ride  over  the  blazing 
fire  which  lay  around  her  hall.  Gunnar  could  not  make 
his  way  through  the  fire ;  so  Sigurd  changed  forms  with 
him  and  then  rode  through.  The  description  of  this  flame 
might  stand  for  a  description  of  the  great  Muspilli,  the 

»Fire 

2  SJijaldborg,  which  generally  means  an  array  of  battle ;  here,  perhaps, 
used  for  some  palisaded  place  full  of  slain,  among  which  lay  Brynhild. 

3  Sigrdrifumal,  Introd.     See  also  Sigur>akv.  Ffnb.  I.,  16. 


416  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

earth-consuming  fire.1  '  Sigurd  rode,  having  in  his  hand 
his  sword  Gram ;  his  horse  Grani  plunged  forward,  feeling 
the  spur.  Now  was  there  a  great  noise,  as  it  says — 

The  fire  began  to  rage,  the  earth  to  shake ; 
The  flame  rose  high  as  heaven  itself ; 
Few  of  the  people's  princes  ventured  forth 
The  fire  to  ride  through  or  to  overleap. 

Sigurd  with  his  sword  compelled  Grani, 
And  the  fire  quenched  before  the  hero ; 
The  flame  was  dimmed  before  the  glory-lover, 
On  the  bright  saddle  that  Rok  2  had  known.' 

Brynhild  was  compelled  to  receive  him,  but  Sigurd 
gave  himself  the  name  of  Gunnar.  When  the  marriage 
bed  was  prepared,  he  laid  his  sword  between  himself  and 
the  bride,  and  when  Brynhild  nsked  why  he  did  this  he 
answered  that  he  had  been  enjoined  so  to  do.  But  they 
exchanged  rings.  Then  Sigurd  rode  back  through  the 
fire,  and  he  and  Gunnar  took  their  right  forms  again. 

Notable  are  the  likenesses  and  the  points  of  difference 
between  this  story  and  the  Ni.belun gen-Lied.  In  the  latter 
Siegfried,  who  has  made  himself  Gunther's  man  for  love 
of  Criemhild,  sister  to  Gunther,  performs  an  office  for  the 
bridegroom  almost  the  same  as  that  which  Sigurd  did  for 
Gunnar.  That  is  to  say,  he  overcomes  the  unwillingness 
of  Brunhild  to  receive  the  embraces  of  her  husband,  and 
then  he  gives  place  to  Gunther  without  dishonouring  his 
bed.  But  there  is  nothing  said  of  the  feat  of  riding  through 
the  flame.  For  at  the  time  at  which  the  Nibelungen  was 
composed  all  shadow  of  meaning  had  been  taken  away 
from  this  incident. 

Yet  the  same  incident  still  lingers  on  in  popular  lore, 
though  in  a  form  different  from  that  which  it  wears  in  the 
Norse  poems,  and  in  one  which  without  some  previous 
explanation  would  be  scarcely  recognisable. 

1  See  infra. 

2  Rok  is  Doom.    The  meaning  of  this  passage  is  not,  however,  quite 
clear  to  me. 


SIEGFRIED  AND  BRUNHILD.  417 

We  owe  to  the  researches  of  Grimm  the  proof  that 
some  among  the  common  thorn  trees  were  by  the  Teuton 
races  so  intimately  associated  with  their  use  for  lighting 
fires  that  they  received  names  from  this  use.1  They  were 
sufficiently  identified  as  'burning  plants.'  The  Gothic 
word  aihvatundi,  which,  generally  means  simply  white- 
thorn, has  etymologically  the  signification  of  the  *  burner.' 
If,  then,  the  ideas  of  thorn  and  fire  were  so .  intimately 
associated  in  the  German's  mind,  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
a  hedge  of  fire  should  sometimes  have  been  replaced  by  a 
hedge  of  thorn.  This  we  find  has  happened  in  many 
myths.  The  circle  of  flame  which  in  earlier  legends  was 
seen  surrounding  the  house  of  death  becomes  converted, 
in  later  German  marchen,  into  a  thorn  hedge.  When  this 
transformation  has  taken  place  the  true  meaning  of  the 
hedge  has,  however,  been  forgotten.  It  is  by  this  process 
of  change  that  even  in  the  Brynhild  myth  the  thorn  makes 
its. appearance.  The  maiden  was  pricked  by  Odhinn  with 
a  sleep  thorn.  This  means  that  she  was  sent  to  the  house 
of  death.  Accordingly,  when  we  next  see  her  on  the 
Hindarfjoll,  she  is  lying  on  a  mound  surrounded  by  a 
circle  of  fire. 

This  story,  reappears  in  a  household  guise  which  is 
familiar  enough  to  us.  The  maiden  whom  we  call  the 
Sleeping  Beauty,2  and  the  Germans  Dornroschen,  Thorn- 
rose  Bud,  harmless  and  childlike  as  she  seems,  is  in  reality 
no  other  than  the  Valkyria  of  the  North,  Brynhild  herself. 
This  we  easily  see  by  examining  the  details  of  her  history. 

1  Veber  das  Verbrenncn  der  Leichcn. 

2  Grimm,  Kinder-  u.  Haus-Mahrchen.    In  the  same  mediaeval  poem,  Notre 
Dame  Ste.  Marie,  from   which,  in  Chap.  II.,  I  quoted  a  passage  which 
showed  the  vitality  of  the  belief  in  the  parent  tree  and  in  descent  from  a 
tree,  we  find  another  incident  which  seems  to  have  arisen  in  the  same  way 
as  the  hedge  of  briar  in  Dornroschen.     Part  of  this  history  relates  how  the 
mother  of  St.  Anne,  while  a  visgin,  became  with  child  only  by  smelling  the 
fruit  of  the  life-giving  tree  (see  Chap.  II.  p.  64).     She  was  accused  of 
immorality  by  the  Jews,  and  to  prove  her  innocence  she  consented  to  walk 
through  the  fire.    As  she  passed,  the  flames  turned  into  roses. 

E    E 


418  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF, 

The  angry  fairy,  who  had  not  been  invited  to  the  chris- 
tening, foretold  that  when  the  Eose  Maiden  had  reached 
her  fifteenth  birthday  she  would  be  pricked  with  a  spindle 
and  fall  down  dead ;  but  this  terrible  sentence  the  other 
fairies  were  able  to  commute  to  a  sleep  of  one  hundred 
years.  All  happened  as  it  was  foretold,  although,  to 
escape  from  fate,  the  king  had,  after  the  decree  of  the 
fairies,  ordered  every  spinning-wheel  throughout  the  land 
to  be  destroyed.  The  king  and  queen  chanced  to  go  out 
upon  the  very  day  on  which  the  maiden  attained  her 
fifteenth  year,  and  she,  wandering  about  alone,  came  to  an 
unused  tower  of  the  castle,  and  there  found  an  old  dame 
sitting  alone  and  spinning.  This  dame  is  Fate.1  'What 
are  you  doing  there  ? '  said  the  king's  daughter.  '  Spinning,' 
said  the  old  crone,  and  nodded  her  head.  '  How  prettily 
the  wheel  turns  round.'  Then  the  princess  took  the 
wheel  and  began  to  spin;  but  scarcely  had  she  done  so 
than  the  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  She  pricked  her  hand 
and  fell  down  in  a  deep  sleep.  And  all  the  court  fell 
asleep  too,  and  at  last  a  thick  thorn  hedge  grew  up  about 
the  palace  and  quite  hid  it  from  view.  But  still  the  tale 
lived  on  in  the  neighbourhood  of  how  there  was  a  beautiful 
maiden  sleeping  behind  the  hedge.  At  last,  when  her  fate 
was  accomplished,  came  the  prince,  the  Sigurd  of  this 
fairy  story,  and  broke  through  the  hedge  of  thorn  and 
kissed  the  maiden  back  into  life. 

So  much  for  the  visits  of  gods  and  men  to  the  world  of 
death.  We  have  now  to  look  on  a  still  more  awful  picture, 
which  we  might  call  the  visit  of  the  World  of  Death  to 
Mannheimar  and  Asgard.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  long- 
foreseen,  long  vainly  guarded  against  Last  Day,  when  the 
powers  of  darkness  and  chaos  are  to  rise  agakist  order  and 
light,  and  bring  destruction  on  the  whole  earth. 

1  But  she  is  also  the  same  as  Angrbodha.  See  what  was  said  in  Chap. 
VI.  of  the  spinning  of  Circe  and  of  Calypso. 


RAaNAROK.  419 

§  2.  RagnaroJc. 

A.  gaping  gap  and  nowhere  grass.  This  is  the  primal 
condition  of  things  whereof  the  Edda  speaks ;  or  of  no- 
things, for  the  gaping  gap  (Ginnungagap)  is  a  translation 
almost  exactly  of  the  Greek  chaos,1  and  means  but  void 
space.  But  imagination  cannot  dwell  with  mere  negation, 
so  that  the  picture  of  Ginnungagap  actually  given  us  is  of 
a  deep  pit  in  the  midst  of  which  welled  up,  *  at  once  and 
ever,'  a  mighty  spring  called  Hvergelrnir.  From  Hver- 
gelmir  flowed  many  streams,  which  rolled  venom  in  their 
course,  and  anon  these  hardened  into  ice,  and  the  vapour 
which  rose^rom  them  hardened  into  rime.  Thus  on  one 
side  of  Hvergelmir  were  peaks  of  snow  and  ice ;  but  on 
the  other  side  was  a  fiery  region  called  Muspell's-heim, 
old  as  the  great  gap  itself,  and  old  as  Niflhel  (Mist-hell), 
which  lay  beneath  the  earth.  This  MuspeH's-heim  was  a 
land  too  glowing  to  be  entered  by  any  save  those  who 
were  native  there.  'He  who  sits  on  the  land's  end  to 
guard  Muspell's-heim  is  called  Surtr  (Swart).  He  bears 
a  flaming  sword  in  his  hand,  and  one  day  he  shall  come 
forth  to  fight  and  vanquish  all  the  gods,  and  consume  the 
world  with  fire.'2 

Fire  and  ice,  which  are  thus  shown  as  earlier  than  the 
ordered  world,  were  destined  to  outlive  that  world,  and  be 
the  chief  agents  in  its  destruction.  Fire  and  cold  were  to 
the  Norseman  the  two  great  symbols  of  cleath — one  the 
funeral  fire  through  which  men  passed  to  the  other  world, 
and  the  other  the  chill  of  the  tomb.  It  was  from  the 
meeting  of  the  heated  air  from  Muspell's-heim  with  the 
icy  vapour  from  Hvergelmir  that  the  giant  race  came  into 
being ;  and  that  swart  god  Surtr,  who  was  the  leader  of 
the  sons  of  Muspell,  was  himself  a  king  of  death.  In  the 
account  of  Ragnarok  we  see  ranged  under  the  leadership 

1  x«w,  aor.  exaSoz/,  to  gape.      Thus  Simrock  derives  « ginnung.'     Vig- 
fusson,  however,  prefers  to  connect  it  with  the  A.  S.  beginnan,  Eng.  begin. 
Vigfusson  and  Cleasby's  Id.  Diet.  s.  v.  ginn. 

2  Edda  Snorra,  4. 

B  E  2 


420  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  SELIEF. 

of  the  giants  of  cold  and  fire  all  minor  images  of  destruc- 
tion, the  sun-  and  moon- devouring  wolves,  the  sea  mon- 
ster, the  Fenrisulfr,  and  Gar  in  the  hell  hound. 

The  forewarning  of  the  end  of  the  world  was  to  be  the 
great  winter,  three  years  in  duration,  which  the  Eddas 
call  Fimbul winter.1  '  Every  man's  hand  shall  be  turned 
against  his  brother,  and  sisters'  children  shall  their  kin- 
ship rend  asunder ;  no  man  shall  another  spare.' 2 

An  axe  age,  a  brand  age ;  shields  shall  be  sundered ; 
A  wind  age,  a  wolf  age,  ere  the  world  welters. 

Three  cocks,  it  is  said,  are  to  proclaim  to^  the  world 
the  dawning  of  the  Last  Day  :  over  the  ^Esir  shall  crow  the 
gold-bright  Gullinkambi ; 3  in  the  bird  wood  over  Mann- 
heimr,  a  bright  red  cock ;  and  beneath  the  earth,  to  rouse 
the  troops  of  ghosts,  a  cock  of  sooty  red.  When  he  hears 
these,  the  giantesses'  watch,  the  eagle,  makes  reply.4 

There  on  a  hill  sat,  and  his  harp  struck, 
The  giantesses'  watch,  glad  Egdir.5 
Before  him  crowed,  in  the  bird  wood, 
The  blood  red  cock,  Fiallar  called. 

The  giant  race  rejoices  and  the  central  tree  takes  fire. 
Heimdal,  who  had  been  set  to  guard  the  rainbow,  now 
blows  loud  his  gjallar-horn6  to  warn  the  gods  that  danger 
is  near;  for  in  truth  Surtr  is  hastening  with  his  fiery 
bands  from  Muspell's  home  towards  the  fairs'  bridge. 
Then  the  gods  take  counsel  together,  and  ride  down  to 
meet  the  foe  on  Vigrid's  plain.  Odhinn  consults  Mini's 
head.  Can  the  danger  yet  be  averted  ?  Time  is  drawing 
to  an  end. 

1  Curiously  enough,  the  same  tradition  of  the  awful  winter  which  was 
to  herald  the  Last  Day  existed  among  the  Persians. 

2  Voluspa,  46  (Liming).  s  Gold-combed. 

<  Voluspa-,  34.  5  The  storm  eagle. 

•  Loud-sounding  horn.    Heimdal  is  a  kind  of  Memnon. 


KAGNABOK.  421 

Yggdrasill  trembles  ;  though  the  ash  still  stands, 
Yet  groans  that  ancient  tree.     The  jotun  !  is  loosened  ; 
Loud  howls  Garm  2  from  the  Gnupa  cave  ; 
The  fetter  breaks  and  the  wolf3  runs  free.4 

Now  from  the  east  comes  sailing  a  ship;  Hrym  (Rime) 
steers  it,  and  all  the  frost  giants  are  within.  Another 
ship,  Naglfar,  made  of  the  nails  of  dead  men,  brings  the 
troops  of  ghosts,  and  that  Loki  steers.5  Surtr  rides  over 
Asbru,  which  takes  fire  beneath  his  tread  and  is  burnt  up  ; 
men  tread  hell's  way,  and  heaven  itself  is  cloven  in  twain. 

Surt  from  the  south  fares,  the  giant  with  the  sword  ; 
The  gods'  sun  shines,  reflected  from  his  shield. 
Rocks  are  shaken,  and  giantesses  totter. 
Heroes  fare  to  hell,  and  heaven  is  cleft  atwain.6 

The  opposing  powers  meet  in  middle  earth.  On  the 
one  side  are  Odhinn  with  the  other  JEsir  and  the  Ein- 
heriar  —  that  is  to  say,  the  heroes  who  have  been  taken  to 
Valholl  —  on  the  other  side  are  the  giants  and  the  ghosts 
with  Loki  and  his  progeny,  and  with  Surtr  and  his  band 
of  fire.  The  field  of  battle  is  Vigrid's.plain. 


How  fares  it  with  the  ^sir  ?  how  with  the  Alfar  ? 
Jotunheim  roars  ;  the  JEsir  come  to  council  ; 
And  the  dwarfs  are  moaning  before  their  stony  doors, 
Know  ye  what  that  betokens  ?  7 

The  three  great  combats  of  Ragnarok  are  between 
Odhinn  and  the  wolf  Fenrir,  between  Thorr  and  the  Mid- 
gard  serpent,  and  between  Freyr  and  Surtr. 

1  Loki. 

2  Garm,  a  hound  who  will  devour  the  moon,  and  who  is  in  nature  com- 
parable to  Fenrir.  « 

8  Fenrir.  *  Vol.  48  (Liming). 

5  The  two  Eddas  give  different  accounts  of  the  sailing  of  Naglfar.  The 
Younger  Edda  confuses  this  ship  with  the  one  steered  by  Hrim,  the  King 
of  Frost  Giants,  the  power  of  cold. 

•  Vol.  51  '  Ibid.  52. 


422  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Now  arises  Hlin's  second  grief, 
When  Odhinn  goes  with  the  wolf  to  fight 
And  the  bright  slayer  of  Beli  with  Sort. 
Then  shall  Frigg's  beloved  one  fall.1 

Hlin  is  Frigg ;  the  bright  slayer  of  Beli  is  Freyr.  In 
each  of  these  battles  there  is  a  fitness.  Fenrir  is  the  type 
not  so  much  of  destruction  as  of  emptiness  and  the  wide 
mouth  of  the  tomb,  and  so  he  is  the  natural  antagonist  of 
Odhinn,  the  fount  of  all  existence.  Thorr  is  a  kind  of 
sun  god,  analogous  to  Apollo  or  Heracles,  and  like  them 
ha  combats  the  great  sea  or  river  serpent.  Still  more 
appropriate  is  it  that  Freyr,  god  of  the  spring-time  and  of 
the  newness  of  life,  should  be  opposed  to  Surt,  the  god 
of  death.2  '  Freyr,'  says  the  Younger  Edda,  '  would  have 
been  victorious  had  he  not  given  away  his  sword  to  Skirnir 
what  time  he  was  a- wooing  GerS ; '  and  the  nature  myth 
underlying  this  saying  is  not  difficult  to  interpret.  To 
these  three  combats  recorded  in  the  Yoluspa  the  Younger 
Edda  adds  a  fourth — namely,  of  Tyr  with  Garni — and  iii 
this  instance,  as  in  so  many  others,  Tyr  is  but  a  pale  shadow 
of  Odhinn,  for  Garm  cannot  be  essentially  different  from 
Fenrir. 

When  Odhinn  has  been  killed  by  Fenrir  he  is  revenged 
by  Yidar,  who  strikes  his  sword  into  the  heart  of  the  wolf. 
Thorr  kills  Jorinungandr  ;  but,  suffocated  by  the  dragon's 
poisonous  breath,  he  recoils  nine  paces  and  falls  dead.  Tyr 
and  Garm  slay  one  another.  Last  of  all  Loki  and  Heimdall 
fight ;  each  kills  the  other.  And  now  Death  (Surtr)  stalks 
unhindered  over  earth  and,  spreading  flame  on  every  side, 
consumes  it  all. 

The  sun  darkens ;  the  earth  sinks  in  the  sea. 
From  heaven  fall  the  bright  stars. 
The  tire-wind  storms  round  the  all-nourishing  tree ; 
The  flame  assails  high  heaven  itself.3 

>  Vol.  53. 

8  Surtr  is  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  Loki ;  each  of  them  conducts 
the  sons  of  Muspell  (Vol.  50  ;  Edda  Snorra,  4).  »  Vol.  56. 


RAGNAEOK.  423 

The  original  myth  of  Bagnarok  perhaps  ended  here, 
drawing  a  veil  over  all  things,  plunging  the  earth  again 
into  darkness,  as  out  of  darkness  it  had  emerged.  As  the 
old  proverb  said,  'Few  can  see  farther  forth  than  when 
Odhinn  meets  the  wolf.'  But  the  Ecldas  do  pass  beyond 
this  picture,  and,  influenced  thereto  perhaps  by  Chris- 
tianity, they  lift  the  veil  again  upon  a  new  world,  which 
rises  out  of  the  ocean  of  chaos,  peopled  by  a  new  race  of 
mankind  and  a  younger  generation  of  ^Esir.  In  a  passage 
of  the  Voluspa,  of  unrivalled  beauty,  we  are  told  how  the 
prophetess,  with  an  eye  which  pierces  beyond  Eagnarok,1 

Sees  arise,  a  second  time, 

Earth, from  ocean,  green  again ; 

Waters  fall  once  more ;  the  eagle  flies  over, 

And  from  the  fell  fishes  for  his  prey. 

The  ^Esir  come  together  on  Ida's  plain ; 
Of  the  earth-encircler,  the  mighty  one,  they  speak. 
Then  to  the  mind  are  brought  ancient  words  a 
And  the  runes  by  Fimbultyr  3  found. 

Then  will  once  more  the  wondrous 
Golden  tablets  in  the  grass  be  found, 
Which  in  the  ancient  days  the  ^Esir  had, 
The  folk-ruling  gods,  and  Fiolnir's  race. 

Unsown  shall  the  fields  bear  fruit- 
Evil  shall  depart,  Balder  come  back  again; 
In  Hropt's  4  high  hall  dwell  Balder  and  Hoder, 
The  happy  gods. 

A  hall  I  see  brighter  than  the  sun, 
With  gold  adorned,  on  Gimil ; 
There  shall  noble  princes  dwell, 
And  without  end  the  earth  possess. 

Then  rides  the  Mighty  One,  to  the  gods'  doom  going, 
The  Strong  One  from  above  who  all  things  governs. 
He  strifes  shall  stay  and  dooms  shall  utter, 
Holiness  establish  which  shall  ever  be. 

1  Vol.  57  sqq.  2  Or  perhaps  '  deeds  of  might.' 

*  The  great  Tyr,  i.e.  the  great  god.  4  Odhinn's. 


424  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Yet  even  now  all  is  not  well ! — 

Then  comes  the  dark  Dragon2  flying, 
The  serpent  from  below,  from  Niflhel. 
Nidhogg  bears  fipon  his  wings  that  fly 
Earth's  fields  over, 
A  corpse.  .  .  . 

Nidhhog,  serpent  of  death,  is  still  not  dead.  Is,  then, 
the  old  course  of  life  and  death  to  be  repeated  for  ever  ? 
We  cannot  say. 

The  impression  of  this  great  myth  remained  in  Ger- 
many, but  it  was  in  Christian  times  overshadowed  by  other 
more  distinctly  Biblical  pictures  of  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
Nevertheless  some  of  the  names  and  incidents  were  pre- 
served. Ragnarok  was  by  the  Germans  called  Muspilli. 
This  word,  in  the  sense  of  the  fire  of  doom,  has  been  pre- 
served in  many  different  dialects  of  the  German  language, 
notably  in  Saxon  and  in  Bavarian. 

We  have  a  long  poem  in  Bavarian  bearing  the  name 
Muspilli.  The  personages  of  the  poem  have  undergone 
the  same  kind  of  transformation  which  turned  Balder 
into  St.  John  the  Baptist ;  but  the  character  of  the  old 
battle  and  the  combats  recorded  in  it  are  to  a  great  extent 
the  same  as  those  of  the  Eddaic  Ragnarok.  The  place  of 
Loki  is  taken  by  the  old  fiend ;  that  of  Surtr  is  taken  by 
Antichrist,  with  whom  fights  Elias,  a  veritable  sun  god, 
though  not  a  Northern  one.3 

*  This  have  I  heard  the  wise  ones  declare.     Elias  shall 


1  Vol.  64. 

2  Drcld,  an  unusual  word,  the  presence  of  which  affords  one  reason  for 
supposing  this  passage  of  late  insertion. 

8  In  Greek  popular  tradition  the  deeds  of  the  sun  god  (Apollo,  Helios) 
are  transferred  to  Elias.  The  chief  motive  for  the  choice  of  this  Old 
Testament  prophet  lies  in  the  likeness  of  his  name  to  that  of  Helios. 
Besides  that  Elias  drives  in  a  chariot  up  to  heaven.  I  take  Elias  here  to 
be  Freyr;  Simrock,  however,  says  he  must  be  Thorr  (1.  c.  p.  130;  see  also 
Grimm,  s.  v.  Mias).  Elias  is  undoubtedly  the  thunderer,  and  has  a  chariot. 
Still  Antichrist  must  be  Surtr,  the  antagonist  of  Freyr. 


MUSPILLI.  425 

strive  with  Antichrist.  The  wolf  is  prepared ;  a  battle 
there  shall  be.  Mighty  the  combat;  mighty  the  reward. 
Elias  strives  for  everlasting  life ;  of  the  righteous  will  he 
the  kingdom  establish ;  wherefore  all  heavenly  powers  to 
his  help  shall  come.  Antichrist  upholds  the  old  fiend, 
Satan.  .  .  .'  Both  Antichrist  and  Elias  will  fall.  The 
blood  of  the  latter  is  to  set  the  world  afire.  t  The  hills 
burn  ;  no  tree  in  all  the  world  remains.  The  seas  dry  up  ; 
the  heaven  is  consumed  in  flame.  The  moon  falls  from 
heaven  ;  Mittelgard  burns.  No  rock  stands  firm ;  the  day 
of  vengeance  is  at  hand.  .  .  .' 

We  might  fairly  say  that  the  old  heathen  hell  or 
Helheim  lived  on  in  men's  belief  in  the  form  of  purga- 
tory; while  the  gloomy  thought  of  Catholicism  added  a 
hell  which  was  infinitely  more  terrible  than  Helheim. 
Purgatory  formed  a  middle  term,  which  helped  men  to 
measure  the  horrors  of  eternal  punishment.  But,  as  a 
fact,  it  happened  that  the  gloomy  teaching  of  the  Church 
overreached  itself ;  the  most  terrible  picture  was  beyond 
the  capacity  of  imagination,  and  men  recoiled  from  it 
and  kept  their  eyes  fixed  upon  purgatory.  I  doubt  if  the 
notion  of  eternal  punishment  was  really  very  often  present 
to  men's  thoughts  in  the  Middle  Ages;  for  we  find  that 
the  indulgences  were  always  offered  in  the  profession  of 
saving  men  from  a  longer  durance  in  purgatory;  they 
were  offered  even  to  the  living  on  that  plea ;  whereas  it 
might  have  been  supposed  that  men's  first  thought  would 
have  been  how  to  escape  the  place  of  eternal  pain.  We 
find  too — a  thing  most  significant — that  mediaeval  legend 
is  full  of  visions  of  purgatory ;  but  that,  before  the  time  of 
Dante,  we  hear  little  of  visions  of  hell. 

It  is  in  the  purgatory  legends,  therefore,  that  we  must 
search,  if  we  wish  to  discover  traces  of  the  beliefs  of 
heathenism  touching  the  nether  world  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
And  it  may  be  added  that  it  is  in  visions  of  journeys  to 
the  earthly  Paradise  that  we  must  look  for  like  information 


426  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

concerning  the  survival  of  the  old  heathen  Paradise.  We 
do  find  many  traces  of  both  these  orders  of  belief.  It  is 
certain  that  the  essential  features  of  the  heathen  under- 
world reappear  in  the  Christian  purgatory  legends ;  but  it 
is  not  so  easy  to  say  that  these  have  been  handed  down 
directly  from  the  beliefs  of  German  heathenism.  Many 
images  taken  from  classic  antiquity,  and  many  drawn  from 
the  Bible,  are  to  be  found  mingled  in  the  picture.  Never- 
theless there  are  some  elements  which  are  especially  charac- 
teristic of  German  thought,  as  we  shall  presently  see. 

At  first  the  visions  are  meagre  in  details,  because,  as  I 
suppose,  the  marriage  between  Christian  and  heathen  belief 
was  not  yet  completed ;  gradually  they  expand  in  variety, 
until  they  reach  their  perfect  form  in  the  vision  of  the 
Florentine. 

The  heathen  belief  in  hell  cannot  be  kept  altogether 
apart  from  the  belief  in  heaven  ;  and  no  more  can  the 
purgatory  legends  be  kept  quite  apart  from  those  of  the 
Earthly  Paradise.  Nevertheless  we  must  leave  to  speak 
of  the  latter,  in  any  detail  until  the  next  chapter.  We 
shall  in  that  chapter  see  more  fully  the  reasons  which 
made  Ireland  (the  most  western  island  known  to  mediaeval 
Europe)  a  home  for  all  myths  connected  with  the  future 
of  the  soul.  We  shall  see  how  that  the  great  Middle  Age 
legend  of  the  Earthly  Paradise  was  the  legend  of  the  voyage 
of  St.  Brandan,  an  Irish  monk.  The  great  Middle  Age 
legend  of  purgatory  was  that  of  the  purgatory  of  St. 
Patrick  ;  and  of  the  lesser  visions  which  prepared  the  way 
for  the  myth  of  St.  Patrick's  purgatory,  or  for  the  still 
more  awful  vision  of  Dante,  a  very  large  number  indeed 
had  their  origin  in  Ireland. 

One  of  the  earliest  visions  of  the  other  world  vouch- 
safed to  a  Christian  monk  was  that  of  St.  Fursey,  an  Irish 
monk,  said  to  have  been  the  nephew  of  St.  Brandan ;  his 
story  is  mentioned  by  Bseda,  and  reported  at  length  in  the 
'  Acta  Sanctorum.' l 

1  Acta  SS.  Jan.  ii.  36. 


VISIONS  OF  PURGATORY.  427 

Once  it  happened  that  Fursey  was  sick  nigh  to  death. 
He  was  being  borne  back  to  his  monastery,  wishing  to  die 
there.  Upon  the  journey  they  began  to  sing  a  vesper 
hymn,  and  suddenly  while  he  was  singing  a  darkness 
seemed  to  surround  him ;  he  felt  four  hands  placed  beneath 
him  to  lift  up  his  body,  and  he  could  discern  that  four 
white  wings  bore  him  along.  As  he  grew  more  accustomed 
to  the  darkness  he  saw  that  two  angels  were  carrying  him, 
and  that  before  them  went  a  third,  armed  with  a  white 
shield  and  flaming  sword.  The  angels,  as  they  flew, 
sweetly  chaunted  '  Ibunt  sancti  de  virtute  in  virtutem  ; 
videbitur  Deus  deorum  in  Sion  ; ' l  and  he  heard  the  choir 
of  angels  answering  in  song  from  above.  This  was  all  he 
knew.  Another  time  the  same  two  angels  bare  him  to 
the  mouth  of  hell,  where  he  saw  nothing  but  heard  the 
howling  of  demons.  Afterwards  he  saw  the  four  fires  of 
purgatory,  at  the  four  corners  of  the  earth. 

There  is  scarcely  any  link,  saving  the  fact  that  the 
vision  was  seen  in  Ireland,  which  connects  this  story  with 
the  older  notions  of  heathen  mythology.  It  is  pure 
Christian  throughout,  and  of  great  beauty  in  its  simplicity. 
Yet  may  we  not  say  that  the  two  white-winged  angels  of 
this  vision  are  not  greatly  different  from  those  other  two, 
Hypnos  and  Thanatos,  who  bore  Sarpedon  to  his  tomb  in 
Lycia  ? 2  who  in  their  turn  only  present  in  a  fairer  form 
the  belief  in  the  two  dogs,  '  the  four-eyed  guardians  of  the 
path,  guardians  of  men.' 

Another  vision  recorded  by  Bseda  is  the  vision  of 
Drihthelm,  a  Northumbrian  monk.  This  story  too  came 
from  Ireland.3  First  we  have  the  appearance  of  the  dark 
valley  which  we  know  so  well  in  all  visions  of  the  under 

1  Ps.  Ixxxii.  8,  Vulg. 

2  //.  xvi.  681,  &c. ;  see  also  Chap.  VI. 

3  bee  Wright,  St.  Patricks  Purgatory,  p.   18.     The  story  was  said  to 
have  been  told  by  Drihthelm  to  Ilsemgils,  a  monk  of  Ireland,  and  by  him 
to  Bffida.    Wright  says,  '  The  vision  of  Drihthelm,  like  that  of  Furseus,  was 
the  subject,  of  ji  homily  in  the  Saxon  Church,  of  which  a  copy  is  preserved 
in  a  MS.  of  the  public  library '  (University  Library)  'of  Cambridge,  Ti,  133.' 


428  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

world.  Then  a  curious  touch  follows.  Passing  along 
this  valley,  they  found  that  one  side  was  filled  with  roar- 
ing flames ;  the  other  side  was  not  less  intensely  cold,  and 
was  swept  by  storms  of  hail  and  rain.  Here  is  that  com- 
bination of  frost  and  heat  to  form  a  complete  picture  of 
the  horrors  of  the  place  of  torments  which  we  afterwards 
meet  with  in  so  many  visions  of  hell  and  purgatory.  For 
we  find  the  ancient  Sea  of  Death  transformed  in  the 
Catholic  legends  either  into  a  lake  of  fire  or  into  a  lake  of 
ice.  This  combination  of  heat  and  cold  is  in  accord  with 
Norse  belief,  which  placed  hell  in  the  North,  which  made 
Loki,  the  god  of  fire,  come  from  icy  Jofcunheim,  and  Surtr, 
the  swart  King  of  Death,  fare  from  Muspelheim.  The 
jotuns  themselves  were  born  of  the  mingling  of  fire  and 
•ice.1  St.  Brandan  found  hell  in  the  North.  Drihthelm 
for  his  sight  of  purgatory  travelled  north-east.  This  too 
is  in  accord  with  the  tradition  of  Norse  mythology.  At 
the  end  of  the  valley  of  heat  and  cold  Drihthelm  came  to 
the  mouth  of  a  pit  from  which  arose  an  intolerable  stench, 
and  thence  came  a  wailing  and  a  laughter ;  and  he  saw 
devils  dragging  souls  into  the  pit.  In  both  these  visions, 
as  in  almost  all  which  follow,  purgatory  is  imagined  on  the 
earth,  but  hell  beneath  it.  The  latter  is  in  a  pit,  reaching 
far  down,  of  which  the  visionary  sees  the  mouth  only. 
Purgatory  we  might  liken  to  Jotunheimar,  hell  to  Hel- 
heiinar. 

In  the  vision  of  Charles  the  Fat,  King  of  France, 
which  is  a  couple  of  centuries  at  least  later  than  that  of 
Drihthelm,2  more  details  have  grown  into  the  picture  of 
the  other  world,  as,  for  instance,  a  labyrinthine  valley  of 
death,  along  which  the  soul,  like  Theseus  in  the  Cnossiaii 
labyrinth,  must  guide  itself  by  a  thread.  In  his  vision  the 
Emperor  saw  giants,  serpents,  rivers  of  molten  metal,  and 


1  Edda  Snorra,  5. 

2  It  was  first  published  by  William   of  Malmesbury   (114:3),  and  may 
be  no  earlier  than  the  twelfth  century.     Charles  ascended  the  throne  in 
884. 


\ 

ST.  PATEICK'S  PURGATORY.  429 

many  pits  in  which  the  wicked  were  punished ;  but  there 
is  nothing  very  distinctive  in  the  picture. 

The  great  era  for  the  record  of  journeys  to  the  land  of 
shades  was  the  twelfth  century,  and  in  these  all  the  be- 
longings of  purgatory  and  of  hell  which  we  have  become 
familiar  with  from  studying  mediseval  art  or  from  reading 
Dante  begin  to  appear.  There  are  at  least  half  a  dozen 
accounts,  more  or  less  detailed,  of  visions  of  purgatory ; 
and  these  culminate  in  the  legend  of  Henry  of  Saltrey 
touching  the  visit  of  a  certain  knight  to  St.  Patrick's 
Purgatory  in  Lough  Derg,  Ireland.  From  the  tenth  to 
the  fourteenth  century  constitutes  an  important  era  in 
the  history  of  Catholicism ;  for  during  that  time  the  con- 
ceptions both  of  this  world  and  of  the  next  grow  steadily 
darker,  until  the  mythology  of  that  age  is  consummated 
in  the  '  Divine  Comedy.'  Prom  the  time  of  Henry  of 
Saltrey  to  the  time  of  Dante  (1153-1300)  the  ruling  in- 
fluence which  moulded  the  popular  conception  of  the  nether 
world  is  to  be  looked  for  in  the  legend  of  St.  Patrick's 
Purgatory.  There  is  moreover  one  point  of  marked  differ- 
ence between  this  narrative  and  the  purgatory  legends 
which  preceded  it.  The  earlier  stories  were  founded  on 
mere  visions  ;  the  spirit  was  believed  to  have  been  snatched 
away  during  an  illness  of  the  visionary  or  in  his  sleep. 
But  the  legend  of  Henry  of  Saltrey  relates  the  descent  of  a 
living  man.  This  man  was  Sir  Owayne,  who  went  down 
in  the  body,  remained,  like  Dante,  in  the  nether  kingdom 
during  one  night,  and  returned  unscathed  the  following 
day.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the  ground  ideas 
which  went  to  the  shaping  of  the  s  Comedy '  are  to  be 
traced  to  the  legend  of  Owayne  Miles. 

The  idea  of  the  descent  of  the  living  man  is  a  very 
important  element  in  the  belief,  because  this  descent  itself 
is  recognised  as  a  sort  of  expiatory  act.  Wherefore  Sir 
Owayne  is  not  in  the  place  so  much  of  one  who  (as  in  a 
vision)  sees  the  punishments  of  others,  as  of  one  who  shares 
in  those  punishments.  He  has,  in  fact,  actually  been  to 


430  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  nether  world — in  every  sense— just  as  Odysseus  in  the 
earlier  legend  concerning  him  must  have  been  imagined 
actually  undergoing  death  and  not  merely  visiting  Hades' 
kingdom.  Such  is  the  idea  which  lies  concealed  in  the 
notion  of  St.  Patrick's  purgatory  a.nd  in  the  promise 
which  Jesus  made  to  the  saint  that  this  purgatory  should 
be  for  anyone  to  go  down  into  who  would,  and  whosoever 
dared  to  go  there  it  should  be  for  him  as  if  he  had  passed 
through  purgatory  after  death. 

*  What  mon,'  he  sayde,  '  that  wylle  hereyn  wende, 
And  dwelle  theryn  a  day  and  a  nygth 
And  holde  his  byleve  and  rygth, 


Whether  he  be  sqwyer  or  knave, 
Other  purgatorye  shalle  he  non  have.1 


The  journey  of  Owayne,  therefore,  may  fairly  be  com- 
pared with  journeys  of  the  old  Norse  heroes  and  gods  to 
the  nether  world,  such  as  those  which  we  traced  in  the 
earlier  part  of  this  chapter. 

The  purgatory  of  St.  Patrick  received  its  name  because 
the  entrance  to  it  had  been  revealed  by  Christ  to  St.  Patrick, 
with  that  promise  attached  which  I  have  just  quoted.  The 
saint  built  a  monastery  about  the  entrance,  and  secured 
the  way  with  a  strong  iron  gate.  One  day  came  the  knight 
Owayne  and  obtained  leave  for  penance'  sake  to  make  the 
journey  into  that  purgatory.  The  door  which  the  prior 
opened  for  him  led  to  the  long  dark  Valley  of  Death,  and 
at  '  the  deep  ditch's  end '  Owayne  emerged  from  pitch 
darkness  to  a  sort  of  twilight.  This  dim  region,  which  we 
might  call  the  land  of  the  setting  sun,  was  the  fore- court 
to  the  place  of  punishment.  It  corresponds  well  enough 
to  the  limbo  in  which  Dante  met  the  poets  and  philosophers 
of  Greece  and  Rome  ;  as  these  lived  in  a  '  blind  life '  bereft 
of  hope,  so  was  the  first  place  to  which  Owayne  came  a 

1  Owayne  Miles,  Cotton  MS.  Calig.  A.  ii.  f .  89.  See  St.  Patrick's  Purga- 
tory, p.  66.  This  is  a  metrical  version  of  the  legend  of  Henry  of  Saltrey. 


ST.  PATRICK'S  PUEGATORY.  431 

desert,  a  '  wildernesse,  for  ther  grewe  nother  tre  ner  gresse.' 
And,  somewhat  as  Dante  met  in  limbo  the  comrades  of 
Virgil,  did  Owayne  meet  in  this  place  fifteen  men  in  white 
garments,  who  warned  him  of  all  that  he  would  have  to 
undergo.  After  that  there  broke  upon  the  knight's  ears 
the  din  of  hell,  which,  hinted  at  long  before  in  the  names 
of  the  infernal  rivers  Cocytus  and  Gjoll,  became  from  this 
time  forth  a  very  conspicuous  feature  in  the  mediaeval 
visions  of  the  under  world.  We  know  how  that  din  broke 
upon  the  ears  of  the  Florentine. 

Diverse  lingue,  orribili  favelle, 

Parole  di  dolore,  accenti  d'  ira, 

Voci  alte  e  fioche,  e  suon  di  man  con  elle, 

Facevano  un  tumulto,  il  qnal  s'  aggira 

Senipre  in  quell'  aria,  senza  tempo  tinta, 

Come  la  rena  quando  il  turbo  spira. 

In  Owayne's  case  it  is 

As  alle  tlie  layte  l  and  alle  the  thonder 
That  ever  was  herde.heven  under, 
And  as  alle  the  tres  and  alle  the  stones 
Shulde  smyte  togedyr  rygth  at  oones. 

And  now  farther  on  into  the  region  of  Jotunheim  ;  for 
it  became  presently  *  derke  and  wonther  colde,'  where  a 
man 

Hadde  he  never  so  mony  clothes  on 
*     But  he  wolde  be  colde  as  ony  stone. 

Anon  the  fiends  led  him  into  another  field  of  punishment, 
where  the  pains  were  all  from  burning  fire  and  where  were 
many  pits  full  of  molten  metal,  in  which  men  stood.  Some 
were  in  up  to  the  chin,  some  to  the  paps,  some  to  the 
middle,  some  only  to  the  knees.  This  imagery  too  has 
been  of  service  to  Dante.2  The  journey  still  continued 
till  the  knight  reached  the  mouth  of  hell.  He  came,  says 
the  narrative,  to  a  great  water,  broad  and  black  as  pitch. 

1  Lightning. 

2  As  in  his  description  of  the  Eiver  of  Blood,  Inferno,  canto  xii. 


^ 


OF   THK 


DIVERSITY 


432  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Over  the  water  a  "brygge  there  vras, 
Forsoothe  kenere  than  ony  glasse: 
Hjt  was  narrowe  and  hit  was  hyge. 

And  that  made  the  bourne  of  his  journey  in  that  direction. 
Afterwards  he  had  a  sight  of  Paradise. 

Contemporary  with  this  history  of  Sir  Owayne  is  the 
vision  of  Tundale,  also  an  Irishman  and  a  monk.  This  is 
not  a  journey,  but  a  vision.  The  same  concomitants  to  the 
orthodox  under-world  appear  here — a  dark  valley,  a  stink- 
ing river,  and  a  lake,  and  over  these  a  bridge.  One  side 
of  the  valley  was  burning,  the  other  side  frozen.  In  this 
case,  moreover,  there  was  a  windy  place  which  was  a  kind 
of  fore-court  to  purgatory,  and  which  in  a  certain  sense 
corresponds  to  the  second  circle  of  Dante's  hell,  where 
the  souls  of  carnal  sinners  are  whirled  round  in  a  perpetual 
storm  of  wind  and  hail.1 

Dante  once  more  brought  hell,  and  with  it  the  notion 
of  eternal  punishment,  prominently  before  men's  eyes. 
But  in  doing  this  he  had  considerably  to  lighten  the 
colours  in  which  purgatory  had  been  depicted  by  other 
hands.  For  all  the  purposes  which  concern  our  enquiry — 
that  is,  for  everything  which  concerns  the  picture  of  the 
under- world  presented  to  the  thoughts  of  men — the  train 
of  association  runs  as  we  have  traced  it,  from  the  heathen 
Helheim  to  the  mediaeval  purgatory  and  from  that  to  the 
hell  of  Dante.  I  have  said  that  in  this  matter  the  con- 
nection between  German  heathenism  and  Christianity  is 
not  very  close;  but  yet  in  certain  points  it  has  been 
clearly  traceable. 


THE  EAETHLY  PARADISE.  433 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    EARTHLY    PARADISE. 

WHEN  Christianity  drew  a  curtain  in  front  of  the  past 
creeds  of  heathen  Europe,  a  veil  through  which  many  an 
old  belief  was  left  still  faintly  visible,  she  succeeded  more 
than  with  most  things  in  blotting  out  the  images  which 
in  former  days  had  gathered  round  the  idea  of  a  future 
state.  It  is  as  if  the  new  religion  were  content  to  leave 
this  world  under  much  the  same  governance  as  before, 
provided  only  she  were  secured  the  undisputed  possession 
of  the  world  beyond  the  grave.  So  the  heathen  gods  were 
not  altogether  ousted  from  their  seats.  The  cloak  of 
Odhinn — that  blue  mantle,  the  air,  of  which  the  sagas  tell 
us — fell  upon  the  shoulders  of  St.  Martin  ;  his  sword 
descended  to  St.  Michael  or  St.  George  :  Elias  or  Nicholas 
drove  the  chariot  of  Helios  or  wielded  the  thunders  of 
Thorr.1  They  changed  their  names,  but  not  their  characters, 
passing  for  awhile  behind  the  scene  to  be  refurnished  for 
fresh  parts  :  just  as  when  the  breath  of  the  new  creed 
blew  over  the  fields,  the  old  familiar  plants  and  flowers 
died  down — Apollo's  narcissus,  Aphrodite's  lilies,  Njord's 
glove,  or  Freyja's  fern — to  grow  up  again  as  the  flowers 
of  Mary,  Our  Lady's  hand,  the  Virgin's  hair.2  But  it  was 
different  with  the  beliefs  which  passed  beyond  this  life. 
The  whole  doctrine  of  a  future  state,  which  for  the 
European  races  had  formerly  belonged  to  the  region  of 
languid  half-belief,3  now  suddenly  became  a  stern  reality. 

1  Wuttke,  Deutsche  Volksaberglaube,  p.  19,  and  Grimm,  Deut.  Myth.  pp. 
127,  946,  and  68  n.,  371,  4th  ed.     Elias,  id.  p.  144. 

2  Cf.  Johannis  Bauhini,  De  plantis  a  di-cis  sanctisve  nomina  habentibus, 
Basiliae,  1521.     Cf.  also  Grimm,  D.  M.  4th  ed.  p.  184  (Balders  hrar). 

3  European  races.    Among  the  Indo-European  nationalities  the  Persians 

P    F 


434  OUTLINES    OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

This  doctrine  grew  greater  while  earthly  things  grew 
less,  until  at  last  it  seemed  to  take  a  complete  hold  upon 
the  imagination,  and  to  gather  round  itself  all  that  was 
greatest  in  the  poetical  conception  of  the  time.  Then, 
from  having  been  so  impressive,  the  idea  of  eternity 
became  familiar  by  constant  use.  At  last  it  took,  in  the 
hands  of  dull  unimaginative  men,  a  ghastly  prosaic 
character,  whereby  we  see  the  infinities  of  pleasure  and 
pain,  of  happiness  or  woe,  mapped  oat  and  measured  in 
the  scales. 

It  is  on  this  account  not  easy  to  trace  back  the  belief 
of  Northern  and  Western  Europe  on  such  matters  to  that 
state  in  which  it  was  while  yet  untouched  by  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity.  Beside  the  dreadful  earnestness  of  the 
two  great  pictures  of  Catholic  mythology,  the  mediseval 
heaven,  and  the  mediaeval  hell,  the  less  obtrusive  notions 
of  earlier  days  fell  into  the  background.  The  older  idea 
of  a  future  state  was  not  of  a  place  for  rewards  or  punish- 
ments so  much  as  for  a  quiet  resting  after  the  toils  of  life, 
as  the  sun  rests  at  the  end  of  day.  If  such  a  creed  were  to 
live  on  at  all  in  the  Middle  Ages,  it  must  do  so  in  defiance 
of  the  dominant  religion.  It  must  survive  in  virtue  of 
the  Old  Adam  of  pagan  days,  not  yet  rooted  out.  It  must 
find  its  home  in  the  breasts  of  those  who  had  not  really 
been  won  over  to  the  dominant  creed ;  who  resented  as 
something  new  and  intrusive  the  presence  of  a  restraining 
moral  code,  or  who  would  fain  believe  that  the  neglected 
gods  were  not  really  dead ;  that  they  were,  peradventure, 
asleep,  or  upon  a  journey  and  had  not  for  ever  given  up 
their  rule.  It  was  through  such  influences  as  these  that 
the  pagan  notions  concerning  a  future  state  survived  in  the 
mediaeval  pictures  of  an  Earthly  Paradise.  This  was  a 
home  of  sensuous  ease,  unblessed  perhaps  with  the  keenest 
enjoyments  of  life,  but  untouched  also  with  the  fear  by 
which  these  pleasures  are  always  attended — that  they  will 

raised  the  doctrine  of  heaven  and  hell  to  supreme  importance,  and  in  so 
doing  greatly,  though  indirectly,  affected  the  creed  of  Christendom. 


THE  EARTHLY  PARADISE.  435 

soon  be  snatched  away.  The  saints  and  confessors  might 
have  their  heaven  and  welcome.  Their  rapturous  holy 
joys  were  not  suited  to  the  heroes  of  chivalry.  There 
must  therefore  be,  men  thought,  another  home  set  apart 
for  them,  for  Arthur  and  his  knights,  for  Charlemagne 
and  his  paladins ;  where,  untroubled  by  turbulent  emo- 
tions, they  should  enjoy  the  fruit  of  their  labours  in  a 
perpetual  calm. 

Catholicism  of  course  made  some  concession  to  this 
spirit.  A  way  for  doing  this  was  opened  by  the  Biblical 
account  of  the  garden  of  Eden ;  for  though  the  Mosaic 
record  says  that  man  was  turned  out  of  the  garden,  it  says 
nothing  about  the  destruction  of  Paradise.  And  accord- 
ingly we  find  lay  and  clerical  writers  alike  speculating 
upon  the  nature  of  this  place  and  the  road  by  which  it 
was  to  be  reached  :  and  presently  we  find  accounts  of  both 
real  and  mythical  voyages  to  the  east  in  search  of  the 
desired  land.  But  there  still  remained  a  question  in  dis- 
pute between  orthodoxy  and  ancient  heathenism.  The 
former  naturally  insisted  upon  the  fact  that  Eden  was  in 
the  east,  but  heathenism  had  an  obstinate  prejudice  that 
its  Paradise  lay  westward ;  so  on  this  point  there  was  a 
battle  between  the  two  faiths. 

In  truth,  we  find  that,  like  the  needle  when  a  neigh- 
bouring magnet  has  been  withdrawn,  popular  belief  on  the 
matter  of  the  Earthly  Paradise,  when  not  subject  to  the 
influence  of  ecclesiastical  teaching,  tends  constantly  to  veer 
round  from  the  orthodox  tradition.  And  this  fact  would 
alone  be  enough  to  convince  us  that  the  myth  which  we 
traced  in  the  story  of  the  voyage  of  Odysseus  has  had  its 
echo  in  other  lands.  But  we  are  not  left  to  this  inferential 
proof.  We  have  seen  how  the  notion  of  the  earth-girding 
Sea  of  Death  permeated  the  beliefs  of  heathen  Germany; 
and  though,  because  of  the  gloomy  character  of  that  creed, 
the  darker  side  of  the  conception  seems  always  to  lie 
uppermost,  we  have  no  reason  to  question  that  there  was 
another  and  a  brighter  side. 

F  F  2 


436  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Whether  even  in  the  case  of  the  storj  of  the  death  of 
Balder  some  picture  of  a  paradise  did  not  follow  after  the 
scene  of  death  I  am  much  inclined  to  doubt.  We  know 
how  universal  among  the  Norse  people  was  the  desire 
for  a  funeral  which  should  imitate  as  closely  as  possible 
the  funeral  of  Balder ;  and  I  cannot  but  believe  that  the 
Norsemen  fancied  that  in  this  way  they  went  to  join  the 
sun  god  in  a  far-off  happy  land.  And  the  vision  which 
succeeds  the  Yala's  account  of  the  destruction  of  all  things 
at  Ragnarok,  the  vision  of  a  new  and  better  earth  arising 
once  more  from  the  sea,  and  Balder  coming  again  from 
Helheim  to  rule  there,  seems  to  express  the  hope  in  which 
men  went  to  death.1 

But,  as  we  well  know,  the  belief  in  an  earth- encircling 
Sea  of  Death  was  not  confined  to  the  Teutons  of  the  North, 
nor  even  to  the  German  race.  There  are  visible  traces  of 
it  among  all  the  nations  of  Europe ;  it  and  the  belief  in 
the  soul's  passage  over  that  sea  have  been  the  property  of 
all  the  Aryas.  With  some  among  the  races  of  our  stock 
these  myths  existed  only  as  parts  of  a  vague  and  general 
belief.  But  among  all  those  who  lived  near  the  Western 
Sea — that  is,  beside  the  Atlantic  or  the  Mediterranean — 
the  belief  grew  to  be  a  precise  one.  Most  of  these  peoples 
could  have  pointed  out  some  spot  in  their  country  whence 
the  ghostly  cargo  set  out  upon  its  voyage,  and  most  had 
some  special  tradition  of  the  locus  of  their  home  for  the 
departed  spirits.  One  among  such  resting-places  for  the 
shades  was  the  little  island  of  Heligoland.  This  was  the 
belief  current. among  Germans  of  the  north  of  Continental 
Germany.  To  the  Germans  of  the  Rhine  mouth,  the 
Ripuarians  or  the  Frisians,  our  own  island  at  one  time 
occupied  the  same  place  in  popular  mythology,  and  from 
being  Angel-land  became  Engel-land,  wherein  no  living 
man  dwelt.  It  was  this,  too,  to  still  nearer  neighbours  of 

1  Though  the  colours  of  this  picture  have  been  much  deepened  through 
the  influence  of  Christianity,  I  doubt  not  but  that  the  belief  was  grounded 
upon  heathen  tradition. 


ENGLAND  THE  HOME  OF  SOULS.  437 

ourselves,  Procopius  gives  us  a  picture  of  the  belief  which 
by  the  sixth  century  had  grown  up  among  the  peasants 
of  northern  Gaul  concerning  Britain.  Britain  in  his  nar- 
rative has  become  changed  into  a  fabulous  island,  Brittia ; 
one  half  of  which  was  thought  to  be  habitable  by  living 
men,  while  the  other  half  was  set  apart  to  be  the  home  of 
ghosts.  Between  the  two  regions  stretched  a  wall,  which 
none  could  pass  and  live ;  whoever  did  cross  it  instantly 
fell  dead  upon  the  other  side,  so  pestilential  was  the  air. 
But  serpents  and  all  venomous  things  dwelt  on  that  other 
side,  and  there  the  air  was  dark  and  spirit-haunted.  It 
was  said  that  the  fishermen  upon  the  northern  coast  of 
Gaul  were  made  the  ferrymen  of  the  dead.  To  them  was 
assigned  the  office  of  carrying  the  souls  across  the  Channel 
to  the  opposite  island  of  Brittia,  and  on  account  of  this 
strange  duty  Procopius  declares  they  were  excused  from 
the  ordinary  incidence  of  taxation.  Their  task  fell  upon 
them  by  rotation,  and  those  villagers  whose  turn  had  come 
round  were  awakened  at  dead  of  night  by  a  gentle  tap 
upon  the  door  and  a  whispering  breath  calling  them  to 
the  beach.  There  lay  vessels  to  all  appearance  empty  and 
yet  weighed  down  as  if  by  a  heavy  freight.  Pushing  off, 
the  fishermen  performed  in  one  night  the  voyage  which 
else  they  could  hardly  accomplish,  rowing  and  sailing,  in 
six  days  and  nights.  When  they  had  arrived  at  the  strange 
coast,  they  heard  names  called  over  and  voices  answering 
as  if  by  rota,  while  they  felt  their  vessels  gradually  growing 
light ;  at  last,  when  all  the  ghosts  had  landed,  "they  were 
wafted  back  to  the  habitable  world.1 

Claudian  makes  allusion  to  the  same  myth,  referring 
it  to  the  same  locality  and  connecting  it  with  the  journey 
of  Odysseus  to  Hades. 

Est  locus  extremum  pandit  qua  Gallia  littus 
Oceani  praetentus  aquis,  ubi  fertur  Ulixes 
Sanguine  libato  populum  movisse  silentem. 

1  Procopius,  Bell.  Goth.  iv.  c.  20,  pp.  620-5,  ed.  Paris ;  ii.  p.  659  sqq. 
ed.  Bonn. 


438  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Illic  Timbrarum  tenui  stridore  volantTim, 
Flebilis  auditur  questus.     Simulacra  colon! 
Pallida,  defunctasque  vident  migrare  figuras.1 

And  I  cannot  heln  associating  with  the  same  super- 
stition a  story  which  we  find  in  Paulus  Diaconus.2  When 
Pertaric,  the  dethroned  King  of  the  Lombards,  was  fleeing 
from  the  power  of  Grimvald  the  Usurper,  he  went  first  to 
France;  but  finding  that  Dagobert  II.,  the  Merovingian 
king,  was  friendly  to  Grimvald,  and  fearing  lest  he  should 
be  delivered  over  to  his  enemy,  he  took  ship  to  pass  over 
to  Britain.  He  had  been  but  a  little  while  upon  the  sea, 
when  a  voice  came  from  the  hither  shore,  asking  whether 
Pertaric  were  in  that  ship ;  and  the  answer  was  given, 
*  Pertaric  is  here.'  Then  the  voice  cried, '  Tell  him  he  may 
return  to  his  own  land,  for  Grimvald  departed  from  this 
life  three  days  ago.'  Surely  this  must  have  been  the 
ghost  of  Grimvald  himself,  arrived  at  the  point  of  his  sea 
transit.  Perhaps  he  could  not  pass  over  until  he  had 
made  this  reparation  for  the  injury  done. 

It  must,  one  would  suppose,  be  in  memory  of  these 
legends  of  the  dead  crossing  the  Channel  that  the  men  of 
Cape  Raz  in  Finistere  still  call  the  bay  below  this  point, 
the  most  westerly  in  France,  '  la  Baie  des  Trepasses,'  the 
Bay  of  the  Dead.3 

Here  again  is  a  variation  upon  the  same  myth,  taken 
from  the  mouth  of  a  peasant  of  modern  Brittany.  The 
difference  is  that  a  certain  river  in  Brittany  has  replaced 
the  British  Channel,  and  that  the  shores  of  the  departed 
now  lie  along  that  river's  banks.  Saving  that  change  we 
have  the  essential  parts  of  the  older  legend ;  we  have  the 
souls  snatched  away  in  a  boat  by  the  grim  ferryman,  just 
such  an  one  as  he  who  .plied  across  the  Styx  or  across  the 
Northern  Midgard  Sea.  I  reproduce  the  story  here  not 
because  it  is  considered  as  a  story  specially  curious — for 

1  In  Rufin,  i.  123.  2  Gest.  Long.  v.  32,  33. 

8  Cambry,  Voyage  dans  le  Finistere,  ii.  240. 


THE  FERRY  OF  CARNOET.  439 

there  are  similar  legends  of  the  Rhine ;  and  the  Erl  Konig 
himself  is  a  kind  of  King  of  Death — but  because  of  the 
interest  which  belongs  to  the  locality  where  the  legend  is 
found  lingering.  All  sorts  of  people  have  had  their  myths 
of  the  Mortal  River ;  but  those  Bretons  who  live  upon  the 
borders  of  what  was  once  deemed  the  Sea  of  Death  have 
a  special  right  to  treasure  this  myth  in  their  familiar  folk 
lore.1 

6  Many  years  ago  there  lived  in  the  village  of  Clohars 
a  young  couple  called  Guern  and  Maharit;  they  were 
betrothed,  and  were  to  be  married  two  days  after  the 
"  Pardon  of  the  Birds,"  which,  as  everyone  knows,  happens 
every  year  in  the  month  of  June  at  the  forest  of  Carnoet. 

6  One  evening  after  sunset  the  lovers  came  home  from 
a  visit  to  some  relatives  in  the  parish  of  Guidel.  When 
they  reached  the  ferry  of  Carnoet,  Guern  shouted  for  the 
ferryman. 

'"Wait  for  me,  Maharit,"  he  said,  "while  I  go  and 
light  my  pipe  at  my  godfather's  cottage  :  it  is  close  by." 

'  The  boatman  of  the  ferry  was  a  mysterious  being, 
who  lived  alone  in  a  hut  beside  the  river.  .  .  .  He  soon 
appeared.  He  was  tall  and  wild-looking,  and  long  grey 
hair  floated  over  his  shoulders. 

6 "  Who  wants  me  ?  "  he  growled.  "  It  is  too  late.  Are 
you  alone,  maiden  ?  " 

4 "  Loik  Guern  is  coming ;  he  has  only  gone  to  light 
his  pipe." 

'  "  He  must  be  quick,  then.  Get  into  the  boat,"  said 
the  ferryman  impatiently. 

6  The  girl  obeyed  mechanically.  But  she  was  surprised 
and  frightened  to  see  the  ferryman  jump  and  push  the 
boat  off  from  the  bank  without  a  moment's  delay. 

'  "  What  are  you  doing,  my  friend?"  she  cried.  "We 
must  wait  for  Loik  Guern,  I  tell  you." 

1  Pictures  and  Legends  from  Normandy  and  Brittany,  by  Thomas  and 
Katherine  Macquoid,  p.  19  sqq.  For  a  similar  German  legend  see  Kuhn, 
tinge //,  Geb.  u.  Marclien,  i.  9. 


440  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

c  There  was  no  answer,  and  now  the  boat  reached  the 
current,  and,  instead  of  passing  across  to  the  opposite 
shore,  they  shot  rapidly  down  the  river. 

'  "  Stop,  stop,  my  friend,  for  pity's  sake  ! "  cried  Maharit 
in  an  agonised  voice.  .  .  .  She  clasped  her  hands  im- 
ploringly; but  the  ferryman  neither  spoke  nor  looked  at 
her,  and  the  boat,  still  impelled  forward,  descended  the 
river  more  and  more  rapidly. 

'  Maharit  bent  towards  the  shore.  "  Loik  !  Loik  !  "  she 
cried.  The  words  died  away  on  her  lips,  for  she  saw 
shadowy  forms  standing  on  the  gloomy  banks ;  they 
stretched  their  arms  towards  her  with  menacing  gestures, 
and  she  drew  back  shuddering.  She  knew  they  were  the 
spirits  of  the  murdered  wives  of  Commore.  .  .  . 

6  Lo'ik  Guern  lit  his  pipe,  said  a  few  words  to  his  god- 
father, and  hastened  back  to  the  ferry.  But  Maharit  was 
gone,  and  the  boat  was  gone  too  !  He  gazed  anxiously 
across  the  river  and  up  and  down  its  banks,  now  cold  and 
sombre  in  the  gathering  darkness.  There  was  no  sound 
or  sight  of  living  thing. 

<  "Maharit!  Maharit!  "he  cried,  "where  art  thou?" 
From  far  away  a  cry  came  to  him  on  the  night 
breeze.  .  .  . 

'  Suddenly,  from  amidst  the  tall  weeds  and  rushes,  rose 
up  the  gaunt  figure  of  an  old  beggar  woman.1 

' "  You  waste  your  breath,  young  man,"  she  said. 
"The  boat  and  those  in  it  are  already  far  from  here;" 
and  she  pointed  down  the  river. 

' "  What  do  you  mean,  mother  P  What  has  happened 
to  Maharit?" 

' "  The  young  girl  has  gone  to  the  shores  of  the  departed. 
She  forgot  to  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  when  she  got 
into  the  boat,  and  she  also  looked  behind  her.  .  .  ." 

'He  set  off  running  like  a  madman  along  the  river 
banks  in  the  direction  the  old  woman  had  pointed  out, 

1  The  counterpart  of  the  Norse  Thokk,  &c. 


ST.   BKANDAN'S  ISLE.  441 

waking  the  silence  of  the  night  with  cries  for  his  beloved 
Maharit. 

' "  Come  back  to  me  !  "  he  cried,  "  come  back ! "  but  all 
in  vain.' l 

Ireland,  more  westerly  still,  inherited  in  still  larger 
measure  the  glamour  which  popular  superstition  in  the 
dark  ages  shed  over  Britain.  Ireland  was  thought  to  be  the 
very  Earthly  Paradise  itself,  and  was  therefore  christened 
with  a  name  the  exact  counterpart  of  Pindar's  /jba/cdpayv 
vfjcroi, ;  it  was  the  '  Island  of  Saints.'  But  then,  according 
to  other  legends,  it  was  likewise  the  home  of  the  damned. 
Here  was  the  entry  to  St.  Patrick's  purgatory,  the  most 
famous  mouth  of  hell  known  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  in 
this  island  it  was  that  Bridget  saw  in  a  vision  a  place 
where  souls  were  falling  down  into  hell  as  thick  as  hail. 

But  the  Irish  themselves  supposed  the  Island  of  the 
Blessed  lay  to  the  west  of  their  land ;  and  they  told  how 
a  monk  of  their  own  country,  a  descendant  of  St.  Patrick, 
having  set  out  to  make  the  voyage  to  Paradise,  had  lighted 
upon  this  happy  island,  which  henceforward  went  by 
the  name  of  St.  Brandan's  isle.  Though  the  legend 
itself — the  priestly  version  of  it  at  least,  which  has  alone 
come  down  to  us — represents  the  saint  as  sailing  eastward, 
tradition  insisted  upon  believing  his  land  lay  in  the  west. 
Sometimes  it  was  to  the  west  of  Ireland  ;  it  could  be  seen 
in  certain  weathers  from  the  coast,  but  when  an  expedition 
was  fitted  out  to  go  and  land  there,  the  island  somehow 
seemed  to  disappear.  Or  it  was  localised  in  the  Canaries. 
It  was,  as  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  declared,  an  island 
which  had  been  sometimes  lighted  upon  by  accident,  but 
when  sought  for  could  not  be  found  (quando  se  busca  no 
se  halla}.  A  king  of  Portugal  is  said  to  have  made  a 
conditional  surrender  of  it  to  another  when  it  should  be 
found ;  and  when  the  kingdom  of  Portugal  ceded  to  the 
Castilian  crown  its  rights  over  the  Canaries,  the  treaty 

1  For  the  rest  of  the  story  I  refer  the  reader  to  the  delightful  book  from 
which  I  have  made  this  extract. 


442  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

included  the  island  of  St.  Brandan,  described  as  cthe  island 
which  had  not  yet  been  found.' 1 

Dante,  we  know,  did  not  accept  the  Greek  story  of 
Odysseus'  return  from  the  Phseacians.  In  the  eighth 
chasm  of  Malebolge  it  is  that  the  poet  meets  Ulysses,  and 
learns  from  him  the  narrative  of  his  death.  The  same 
motive  influenced  this  Ulysses — and  this  is  the  fact  of 
supreme  importance  to  us — to  venture  into  the  Atlantic 
which  doubtless  Dante  knew  had  influenced  many  sailors 
of  his  time— the  hope  to  find  a  new  land  away  in  the 
west. 

'When  I  left  Circe,'  the  much-enduring  Greek  says, 
'  when  I  left  Circe,  who  held  me  a  year  or  more  near 
Gaeta — before  ^Eneas  had  given  that  place  its  name — 
neither  my  fondness  for  my  son,  nor  piety  towards  my  aged 
father,  nor  the  love  with  which  I  should  have  lightened  the 
heart  of  Penelope,  could  conquer  the  strong  desire  which 
swayed  me  to  gain  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  human 
wickedness  and  worth.  So  1  set  forth  upon  the  open  sea 
with  one  ship  and  with  that  small  band  by  whom  I  had 
never  been  deserted.  One  shore  and  the  other  I  saw,  as 
far  as  Spain  and  Morocco,  and  the  Island  of  Sardinia,  and 
other  islands  which  that  sea  washes  round.  I  and  my  com- 
panions were  old  and  slow  when  we  gained  the  narrow 
strait  where  Hercules  has  set  up  his  sign-posts,  that 
men  should  not  venture  beyond.  On  the  right  I  passed 
Seville ;  I  had  already  passed  Ceuta  on  the  left.  "  Oh ! 
my  brothers,"  I  cried,  "  who  through  a  hundred  thousand 
dangers  have  reached  the  West,  refuse  not  to  this  brief 
vigil  of  your  senses  which  is  left  the  knowledge  of  the  un- 
peopled world  beyond  the  sun.  Consider  your  descent;  ye 
were  not  made  to  live  the  life  of  brutes,  but  to  follow  virtue 
and  knowledge."  I  made  my  comrades  with  this  short 
speech  so  eager  for  the  voyage,  that  had  I  wished  it  I 
could  scarce  have  held  them  back ;  and  turning  our  backs 
upon  the  morning  and  bearing  always  towards  the  left  we 

1  Wright,  The  Voyage  of  St.  Brandan.     Percy  Soc.  Pub.,  vol.  xiv. 


DANTE'S  ACCOUNT  OF  ULYSSES'  VOYAGE.      443 

made  our  oars  wings  for  our  foolish  flight.  Night  saw 
already  the  other  pole  and  all  its  stars,  and  our  pole  so 
low  that  it  did  not  rise  above  the  ocean  floor.  Five  times 
relit  and  quenched  as  often  had  been  the  light  which  the 
moon  sheds  below,  since  we  entered  on  the  steep  way, 
when  there  appeared  before  us  a  mountain,  dim  with 
distance,  which  seemed  so  high  as  I  had  never  seen 
mountain  before.  We  rejoiced ;  but  our  joy  was  soon 
turned  to  grieving ;  for  from  the  land  came  a  tempest 
which  struck  the  fore  part  of  our  vessel.  Thrice  it  whirled 
her  round  with  all  its  waters,  and  the  fourth  time  the  poop 
rose  up  and  the  prow  turned  downwards — such  was  the 
will  of  God — and  the  sea  closed  over  us.' 

Dante,  we  see,  had  no  sympathy  with  the  hopes  of  those 
who  thought  to  win  by  mortal  means  to  the  Earthly  Para- 
dise. He  calls  the  west  '  the  unpeopled  land  beyond  the 
sun ; '  for  he  was  upon  the  side  of  orthodoxy,  and  in  his 
confession  of  Ulysses  doubtless  meant  to  cast  reproach  upon 
those  obstinate  ones  who,  against  the  teaching  of  Scripture, 
still  hoped  to  find  a  place  where  they  could  avoid  death. 
The  mountain  which  he  places  in  the  Atlantic,  the  high 
mountain,  bruna  per  la  distanza,  which  Ulysses  sees,  is  the 
Mountain  of  Purgatory ;  and  only  by  ascending  that  could 
men  reach  the  Earthly  Paradise.  Other  land  he  recog- 
nises none  there.  But  he  bears  witness  to  the  belief  that 
the  west  was  not  unpeopled.  How  without  such  a  belief 
could  the  traveller  have  been  urged  to  seek  the  west  by  a 
desire  of  knowing  more  of  human  wickedness  and  worth  ? 

Columbus,  it  is  well  known,  was  not  uninfluenced  by 
the  purely  mythic  stories  of  a  western  world.  These  tales 
had  in  his  day  been  so  long  repeated  and  so  much  changed 
that  they  often  wore  the  face  of  commonplace  fact;  and 
numerous  were  the  successors  as  well  as  the  predecessors  of 
Columbus  who  fancied  they  were  going  to  find  an  Atlantis 
or  other  fabulous  place  more  wonderful  than  any  they 
really  lighted  upon.  Fancy  and  superstition  here,  as  in 
the  researches  of  astrologers  and  alchemists,  commanded 


444  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  aid  of  more  exertion  and  of  greater  enthusiasm  than 
would  have  been  at  the  service  of  sober  truth.  Thousands 
of  voyagers  perished  before  any  end  was  reached.  But  the 
journeys  did  at  last  end  happily  in  the  discovery,  if  not  of 
a  deathless  land,  at  any  rate  of  a  new  world. 

Another  story  of  a  voyage  over  the  Sea  of  Death  is  the 
one  recorded  by  Saxo  Grammaticus  to  have  been  made  by 
Gorm  the  Wise,  King  of  Denmark.  In  many  particulars 
the  legend  as  it  has  come  to  us  in  the  pages  of  Saxo  and 
in  its  Latin  dress  is  clearly  copied  from  the  great  Greek 
epic.  But  there  are  other  incidents  for  which  no  originals 
could  be  discovered  in  the  Odyssey ;  and  the  picture  of 
the  other  world  which  it  presents  is  on  the  whole  quite  in 
accordance  with  that  which  from  other  Northern  sources 
we  traced  in  the  last  chapter.  It  might,  perhaps,  be  said 
that  the  history  of  the  voyage  of  Gorm  belongs  rather  to 
descriptions  of  hell  than  to  accounts  of  the  earthly  Para- 
dise. It  records  a  journey  undertaken  rather  to  the  Land 
of  Death  than  to  any  heaven.  But  because  we  have  had 
so  much  to  say  here  concerning  the  passage  of  the  soul 
over  seas,  and  had  so  much  less  to  say  on  this  head  in  the 
last  chapter,  and  because  the  feature  of  the  sea  voyage  is 
put  forward  very  distinctly  in  the  Gorm  legend — it  cannot 
be  amiss  if  we  give  one  glance  at  this  history.1 

One  of  Gorrn's  subjects,  a  certain  Jarl  Thorkill,  was 
reported  to  have  previously  made  a  voyage  of  the  same  kind 
as  that  which  on  this  occasion  Gorm  proposed  to  himself — 
that  is  to  say,  a  voyage  to  farther  Biarmia,  beyond  any 
known  region  of  land,  to  one  where  many  giants  dwelt, 
and  as  king  of  these  giants  Utgarthilocus.  Thorkill, 
then,  we  may  take  to  be  in  reality  the  god  Thorr,  and  it 
is  interesting  to  see  that  in  changing  the  god  into  a  man 
the  name  should  have  been  changed  into  a  not  unusual 
proper  name.2  Gorm  set  sail  with  three  ships,  holding 

1  Saxo  Grammaticus,  Historia  Danica,  ed.  Miiller  and  Velschow,  1 839- 
58,  p.  420. 

2  Thorkill  is  a  very  common  Norse  name  for  men.    What  the  etymology 


VOYAGE  OF  GOKM  THE  WISE.  445 

three  hundred  men,  under  the  command  of  Thorkill.  Their 
first  adventure  is  evidently  a  plagiarism  from  the  Odyssey. 
They  landed  on  a  certain  island  covered  with  flocks  and 
herds,  but,  as  these  last  were  under  the  protection  of  the 
gods,  Thorkill  forbade  the  men  to  take  more  than  was 
needful  to  satisfy  their  immediate  wants.  They  were  not 
to  store  away  in  the  ships.  This  order  the  sailors  dis- 
obeyed ;  and,  in  consequence,  when  night  came  on,  a  band 
of  fearful  monsters  came  flying  round  the  ships,  and  the 
terrified  sailors  had  to  expiate  their  crime  by  sacrificing 
three  men,  one  for  each  ship.  When  this  had  been  done 
the  expedition  sailed  away. 

And  now  with  favourable  breezes  they  reached  the 
coasts  of  farther  Biarmia,1  a  land  where  constant  cold 
reigned  and  where  the  ground  was  buried  deep  in  ancient 
snow.  It  had  thick  untraversable  woods,  not  abounding 
in  fruit,  bat  in  wild  beasts  of  strange  kinds.  Ther&  they 
drew  up  their  boats  ashore2  and  went  forward  afoot. 
As  evening  came  on,  a  man  of  huge  stature  suddenly 
appeared  before  them.  He  was  Gunthmund,  the  brother 
of  Geruth,  to  whose  palace  they  were  faring.  Anon  they 
reached  a  river  which  was  traversed  by  a  golden  bridge.3 
But  when  they  would  have  gone  over,  Gunthmund  showed 
them  that  this  river  separated  the  world  of  men  from  the 
world  of  monsters,  a,nd  that  no  living  man  might  traverse 
it.  ...  It  is  curious  to  trace  in  these  descriptions  the 
admixture  of  ancient  Norse  belief  and  classical  myth. 
The  bridge  is  the  Gjallar-bru,  and  could  not  have  been 
borrowed  from  the  Odyssey.  But  soon  we  get  back  again 
to  the  Odyssean  legend.  If  they  partook  of  food  at  the 
table  of  King  Gunthmund  the  same  fate  would  overtake 


of  it  is  I  do  not  know — possibly  Thor-ketill.  It  is  curious  that  one  of  the 
monkish  visions  of  purgatory  current  in  the  twelfth  century  was  the  visit 
of  Thurcill. 

1  A  sort  of  Utgard,  as  we  shall  see. 

2  Like  Odysseus  when  he  came  to  the  shore  of  Ocean  and  to  the  groves 
of  Persephone. 

»  Gjallar-bru  (see  Chap.  VIII.) 


446  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

them  which  fell  upon  the  feasters  in  Circe's  hall.  They 
would,  as  Thorkill  told  them,  become  as  brutes,  losing  all 
memory.  Thorkill  was  not  wanting  in  excuses  when  the 
giant  complained  of  the  discourtesy  of  him  and  his  com- 
rades in  not  partaking  of  the  meal.  £  The  food  is  strange 
to  them ;  they  cannot  eat,'  £c.  Some,  however,  could  not 
resist  the  delights  offered,  and  fell  victims  to  the  enchant- 
ment. The  rest  journeyed  further  still  to  the  dwelling  of 
King  Geruth,1  and  came  to  a  black,  barbarous-looking 
town,  which  seemed  to  them  '  like  a  vaporous  cloud.'  Two 
dogs  exceeding  fierce  guarded  the  entrance.  Within  the 
gates  were  horrible  black  spectres,  and  they  were  oppressed 
with  the  putrid  stench  with  which  the  air  was  heavy. 
Thorkill  made  for  a  stone  fortress,  which  was  the  palace 
of  Geruth,  but  ere  they  reached  it  he  warned  his  com- 
rades to  keep  from  their  minds  all  avaricious  longings ; 
for  if 'they  took  aught  away  they  would  fall  into  the 
power  of  the  king.  Then  is  reference  made  to  the  visit 
of  the  god  Thorr  to  the  same  place,  and  to  some  of  the 
feats  which  he  performed  while  there.  .  .  . 

This  picture  is  almost  the  same  as  that  given  us  of 
the  ancient  Jotunheim,  but  it  is  re-dressed  in  a  later  form 
and  furnished  with  some  images  borrowed  from  Homer. 
There  is  no  need  to  follow  further  the  adventures  of  Gorm 
and  his  comrades,  many  of  whom,  of  course,  perished  as 
the  comrades  of  Odysseus  did,  while  the  leader  of  the  ex- 
pedition and  Thorkill  got  back  home. 

The  story  which  was  up  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century  the  most  influential  in  sending  men  upon  Odyssean 
voyages  was  probably  that  to  which  allusion  has  been 
already  made — the  legend  of  St.  Brandan.2  The  account 
must  be  classed  among  the  legends  of  the  saints ;  it  was 
told  by  priests,  and  has  been  committed  to  writing  by  a 

1  The  Geirrod  of  the  Edda     Geirrod  is  a  sort  of  giant  and  an  enemy  of 
Odhinn.     Grinmismdl. 

2  The  name  Brandan  is  probably  allied  to  Bran,  the  Celtic  hero — and 
sun  god  ?     For  him  see  Matthew  Arnold,  Celt.  Lit.     The  word  means  chief 
or  head :  it  is  the  same  as  Brennus. 


VOYAGE  OF  ST.  BRANDAN.  447 

priest.  It  offers,  in  fact,  a  happy  mixture  of  heathen  fable 
and  Biblical  legend.  It  should  be  remembered  that  the 
cycle  of  the  legends  of  the  saints  made  up  a  literature  more 
distinctly  popular  than  even  the  stories  of  the  legendary 
heroes  of  early  chivalry,  such  as  the  paladins  of  Charle- 
magne and  the  knights  of  the  Round  Table. 

These  last  were  the  theme  of  minstrels ;  they  were  told 
in  the  castle  hall  and  bower  to  knights  and  ladies.  The 
lives  of  the  saints  were  repeated  by  the  priests,  who  were 
of  the  peasant  class,  and  by  them  spread  abroad  among  the 
peasantry.  They  formed  the  great  popular  literature  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  In  them  many  of  the  old  gods  came  to 
life  again,  and  walked  more  easily  in  the  garb  of  peasant 
saints  than  in  the  armour  of  knights  and  paladins.  There- 
fore it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  great  legend  of 
the  Earthly  Paradise  from  the  eighth  century  to  the  four- 
teenth is  the  story  of  the  voyage  of  St.  Brandan.  This 
is  true,  as  that  before  the  time  of  Dante  the  locus  classicus 
among  the  purgatory  myths  was  the  story  of  St.  Patrick's 
purgatory.  Both  these  legends  arose,  as  we  have  noticed, 
in  Ireland,  the  legitimate  '  Home  of  Souls.' 

We  have  already  seen  how  in  the  case  of  the  story  of 
St.  Brandan's  voyage  popular  prejudice  was  more  powerful 
than  the  ecclesiastical  tradition;  and  how  even  after  it 
had  become  the  accepted  history  of  the  journey  to  Para- 
dise the  same  popular  belief  quietly  garbled  the  text  and 
modified  the  legend  to  suit  its  theories.  The  myth  did 
not  originally  speak  of  a  journey  to  the  west,  but  of  one  to 
the  east ;  yet  common  tradition  succeeded  in  making  the 
island  of  St.  Brandan  veer  round  from  its  eastern  site  to 
lie  off  the  west  coast  of  Ireland  or  off  Portugal.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  there  will  be  some  portions  of  the  legend  which 
express  better  than  do  others  the  popular  belief  concern-, 
ing  the  Western  Paradise.  To  find  these,  we  must,  there- 
fore, read  a  little  between  the  lines  of  the  ecclesiastical 
story.  It  is  not  the  eastern  land  to  which  St.  Brandan 
finally  attained  which  could  have  represented  to  men's 


448  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

imaginations  their  western  i  St..  Brandan's  Isle,'  but  some 
one  among  the  islands  which  the  saint  met  with  in  the 
course  of  his  long  voyage.  There  were  many  of  these 
islands  :  each  one,  no  doubt,  possessed  some  features  which 
were  thought  to  distinguish  the  home  of  the  blessed. 

One  was  the  '  Ylonde  of  Sbepe  ' — we  think  of  Odysseus 
on  Thrinakia — e  where  is  never  cold  weder,  but  ever  sommer, 
and  that  causeth  the  shepe  to  be  so  grete  and  whyte.' 
Another  island  contained  an  abbey  of  twenty-four  monks, 
4  and  in  this  londe,'  the  monks  told  St.  Brandan,  *  was  ever 
fayre  weder,  and  none  of  us  hath  been  seke  syth  we  came 
hyther.'  But  I  take  the  following  to  be  one  of  the  best 
descriptions  of  an  earthly  Paradise  to  be  found  in  Middle 
Age  romance.  It  is  the  Paradise  of  Birds : — l 

c  But  soone  after,  as  Giod  wold,  they  saw  a  fayre  yloiide, 
full  of  floures  and  herbes  and  trees,  whereof  they  thanked 
God  of  His  good  grace,  and  anone  they  went  on  londe. 
And  when  they  had  gone  longe  in  this,  they  founde  a  full 
fayre  well,  and  thereby  stode  a  tree  full  of  bowes,  and  on 
every  bow  sate  a  fayre  byrde;  and  they  sate  so  thycke 
on  the  tree  that  unneath  ony  lefe  of  the  tree  nayght  be 
seen,  the  nornbre  of  them  was  so  grete ;  and  they  sange  so 
meryly  that  it  was  an  heavenly  noyse  to  here.  .  .  .  And 
than  anone  one  of  the  byrdes  fledde  fro  the  tree  to  Saynt 
Brandan,  and  he  with  flyckerynge  of  his  wynges  made  a 
full  merye  noyse  lyke  a  fydle,  that  hym.  semed  he  herde 
never  so  joyfull  a  melodye.  And  than  Saynt  Brandan 
commaunded  the  byrde  to  tell  him  the  cause  why  they 
sate  so  thycke  on  the  tree  and  sange  so  meryly.  And  than 
the  byrde  sayd,  "  Sometyme  we  were  aungels  in  heven,  but 
whan  our  mayster  Lucyfer  fell  down  into  hell  for  his  high 


1  The  notion  of  the  soul  entering  into  the  shape  of  a  bird  is  of  course 
one  among  the  most  common  in  mythology.  The  wings  of  the  bird  naturally 
express  the  freedom  and  spiritual  condition  of  the  soul  (see  Chap.  II.)  In 
Lithuanian  tradition  the  soul  escapes  along  the  Milky  Way  in  the  form  of 
a  bird.  Hence  the  Milky  Way  is  by  the  Lithuanians  called  '  the  Way  of 
Birds.' 


VOYAGE  OF  ST.   BRANDAN.  449 

pryde,  we  fell  with  hym  for  our  offences,  some  hyther  and 
some  lower,  after  the  qualite  of  theyr  trespace." ' l 

This  might  be  a  fall  from  heaven,  but  it  was  a  rise 
from  earth.  A  place  suited  to  the  character  of  any  who 
were,  like  these  angels,  of  a  temporising  nature.  For 
such  the  Earthly  Paradise  existed,  for  it  was  the  creation 
of  their  own  brains.  They  did  not  judge  themselves  so 
severely  as  Dante  judges  them.  He,  too,  shows  us  the 
same  angels  who  fell  f  for  no  great  trespace,'  but  he  calls 
them 

II  cattivo  coro 
Degli  angeli,- 

'the  caitiff  choir  of  angels,  who  were  neither  rebellious 
nor  faithful  to  God,  but  were  for  themselves ' 

A  Dio  spiacenti  et  a  nemici  sui, 

'hateful  to  God  and  to  His  enemies.'  ...  As  the 
mediaeval  purgatory  was  nothing  else  than  a  survival  of 
the  Greek  Hades  or  Norse  Helheim  into  the  creed  of 
Christendom,  to  the  thought  of  which  the  terrors  of  the 
heathen  place  of  punishment  seemed  to  offer  but  an  in- 
adequate representation  of  hell,  so  this  probationary 
Paradise  of  Birds  is  the  truer  survival  of  the  heathen 
heaven  than  is  the  Eastern  Paradise  to  which  St.  Brandan 
at  last  attained. 

This  legend  I  take  to  be  one  of  the  lingering  foot- 
prints of  a  past  Celtic  mythology ;  other  traces  of  it  in 
this  matter  of  the  Earthly  Paradise  and  of  the  Sea  of 
Death  are  those  stories  which  we  gathered  from  Procopius 
and  Claudian  of  a  journey  made  by  the  souls  from  the  west 
of  Prance  over  sea,  to  our  island.  It  is  fortunate  that 
though  the  Celtic  mythology  as  a  whole  is  lost  to  us,  some 
gleanings  can  still  be  had  therefrom. 

One  other  relic  of  Celtic  belief  survives  in  the  account 
of  the  death  of  Arthur  in  the  Arthurian  Romance ;  for 

1  The  Legend  of  St.  Brandan,  by  T.  Wright.     Percy  Soc.  Trs.,  vol.  xiv. 

G  G 


450  OUTLINES  OF   PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

herein  appears  the  name  of  the  old  Celtic  Paradise, 
Avalon,  which  means  the  'Isle  of  Apples.'1  There  is  a 
shade  of  sadness  thrown  over  the  story ;  the  loss  of  the 
hero  from  earth  is  too  great  to  allow  the  poet  much  thought 
of  Arthur's  joys  in  the  future  state.  Still  he  is  going  to 
Avalon,  and  Avalon  is  certainly  the  Celtic  Paradise.  It 
is  the  island  of  Hesperides,  or  the  land  of  Phseaceans, 
under  another  name,  distinguished  not  less  specially  than 
the  Greek  Paradises  were  by  its  wealth  in  fruits.  For  this 
is  implied  by  the  term  '  Isle  of  Apples.'  The  battle  in 
which  Arthur  was  mortally  wounded  was  Camelot,  which 
Malory  describes  as  '  on  the  downs  by  Salisbury,  not  far 
from  the  sea-shore.'  Sir  Bedivere  bore  Arthur  from  the 
field,  and  laid  him  in  a  chapel  by  the  sea.  Then  Arthur 
sent  his  knight  to  give  a  signal  to  the  fairy  powers  that 
they  were  to  take  him  away  to  Avalon. 

6  My  time  hieth  fast,'  said  the  king.  '  Therefore  take 
thou  Excalibur,  my  good  sword,  and  go  with  it  to  yonder 
water-side,  and  when  thou  cornest  there  I  charge  thee 
throw  my  sword  in  that  water,  and  come  again  and  tell 
me  what  thou  there  hast  seen.  .  .  .'  When  Excalibur 
was  thrown  into  the  sea,  '  there  came  an  arm  and  a  hand 
above  the  water  and  met  it  and  caught  it,  and  so  shook  it 
thrice  and  brandished,  and  then  vanished  away  the  hand 
with  the  sword  in  the  water.  .  .  .  Then  Sir  Bedivere 
took  the  king  upon  his  back,  and  so  went  with  him  to 
that  water-side.  And  when  they  were  at  the  water-side, 
even  fast  by  the  bank  hoved  a  little  barge,  with  many  faire 
ladies  in  it,  and  among  them  all  a  queene,  and  all  they  had 
black  hoods,  and  all  they  wept  and  shrieked  when  they 
saw  the  King  Arthur.  "Now  put  me  into  the  barge," 
said  the  king;  and  so  did  he  softly.  And  there  received 
him  three  queenes2  with  great  mourning,  and  so  these 
three  queenes  set  him  down,  and  in  one  of  their  laps  King 
Arthur  laid  his  head,  and  then  that  queene  said,  "  Ah,  dear 

Therefore  it  corresponds  to  the  Garden  of  Hesperides. 
2  The  Nornir  (  =  Valkyriur)  ? 


AVALON.  451 

brother,  why  have  ye  tarried  so  long  from  me  ?  Alas  !  this 
wound  on  your  head  hath  caught  over  much  cold."  And 
so  they  rowed  from  the  land ;  and  Sir  Bedivere  beheld  all 
those  ladies  go  from  him.  .  .  .  And  he  then  said,  "  I  will 
to  the  vale  of  Avalion  to  be  healed  of  my  grievous  wound. 
And  if  thou  hear  never  more  of  me,  pray  for  my  soul." 
But  ever  the  queens  and  ladies  wept  and  shrieked  that  it 
was  pity  to  hear.' l 

Afterwards  Malory  says — 

'  Thus  of  Arthur  I  find  never  more  written  in  books 
that  be  authorised,  nor  more  of  the  certainty  of  his  death 
herd  I  never  tell,  but  thus  was  he  led  away  in  a  ship 
wherein  were  three  queenes :  that  one  was  King  Arthur's 
sister,  Queen  Morgan  le  Fay;  the  other  was  Queen  of 
North  Gales ; 2  the  third  was  the  Queen  of  the  Waste 
Lands.  .  .  .  But  some  men  yet  say  in  many  parts  of 
England  that  King  Arthur  is  not  dead,  but  had  by  the 
will  of  oar  Lord  Jesus  Christ  into  another  place.  And 
men  say  that  he  shall  come  again,  and  he  shall  win  the 
holy  cross.' 

The  story  of  Arthur's  going  to  Avalon  is  told  here  in 
no  high  key  of  triumph ;  but  a  little  hope  lingers  about  it. 
The  circumstances  in  which  arose  the  Arthur  legend  were 
not  suitable  to  notes  of  exultation.  The  story  is  the  epic 
of  a  defeated  race ;  it  was  the  inheritance  of  the  Britons 
after  the  Saxon  conquest.  But  if  every  myth  is  beautiful 
which  tells  of  the  dying  hero  going  to  the  Happy  Land  of 
the  Sunset,  and  which  promises  his  return  when  his  people 
a.re  at  its  sorest  need,  twice  as  touching  is  the  form  which 
the  legend  takes  in  the  mouth  of  a  people  whose  hopes 
are  dying  aut,  and  whose  sun  itself  is  sinking  towards  its 
western  eclipse. 

Much  more  full  is  the  account  of  the  visit  of  Oger  le 
Dannois  (Holger  Danske)  to  the  same  Paradise  of  Avalon. 
The  account  which  I  here  translate  is  only  a  sixteenth- 

1  Sir  T.  Malory,  Morte  d'Arthwe,  c.  168.  2  North  Wales, 

a  o  2 


452  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

century  version  of  the  tale,  but  it  is  copied  directly  from 
the  poetic  version  of  the  well-known  troubadour  Adenez, 
chief  minstrel  at  the  court  of  Henry  III.  of  Bavaria  (1248— 
1261),  and  for  his  excellence  in  his  art  called  Le  Roy  or 
king  of  all.1  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  its  chief  par- 
ticulars the  story  is  far  older  than  the  days  of  Adenez. 
It  is  thus  that  the  prose  version  from  which  1  have  trans- 
lated tells  the  history  of  the  adventure  of  Oger  at  Avalon : — 

Caraheu  and  Gloriande  were  in  a  boat  with  a  fair  com- 
pany, and  Oger  had  with  him  a  thousand  men-at-arms. 
When  they  were  a  certain  way  on,  there  arose  so  mighty 
a  tempest  that  they  knew  not  what  to  do,  only  to  commit 
their  souls  to  God.  So  great  was  the  storm  that  the  mast 
of  Oger's  ship  brake,  and  he  was  constrained  to  embark  in 
a  little  vessel  with  a  few  of  his  comrades ;  and  the  wind 
struck  them  with  such  fury  that  they  lost  sight  of  Caraheu. 
Caraheu  was  so  sore  troubled  that  he  was  like  to  die,  and 
he  began  to  mourn  the  noble  Oger ;  for  he  wist  not  what 
was  become  of  the  boat.  And  Oger  in  like  manner  la- 
mented Caraheu.  Thus  grieved  Caraheu  and  the  Christians 
in  his  company,  saying,  ( Alas !  Oger,  what  is  become  of 
thee  ?  This  is,  I  ween,  the  most  sudden  departure  that  I 
heard  of  ever.'  'Nay,  but  cease,  my  beloved,' said  Glo- 
riande ;  '  he  will  not  fail  to  come  again  when  God  wills, 
for  he  cannot  be  far  away.'  'Ah,  lady,'  said  Caraheu, 
'  you  know  not  the  dangers  of  the  sea ;  and  I  pray  God  to 
take  him  into  His  keeping.  .  .  .' 

Now  I  will  leave  speaking  of  Caraheu,  and  return  to 
Oger,  who  was  in  peril,  yet  was  ever  grieving  for  his 
friend  and  saying,  '  Ah,  Caraheu,  hope  of  the*  remaining 
days  of  my  life,  thou  whom  I  loved  next  to  God  !  How 
has  God  allowed  me  to  loose  so  soon  you  and  your  lady  ? ' 
At  that  moment  the  great  ship,  in  which  Oger  had  left  his 
men-at-arms,  struck  against  a  rock,,  and  he  saw  them  all 

1  He  is  likewise  the  author  of  the  Cleomenes,  which  is  by  some  supposed 
to  be  the  original  of  Chaucer's  incomplete  Squire's  Tale. 


OGER  THE  DANE.  453 

perish,  at  which  sight  he  was  like  to  die  of  grief.  And 
presently  a  loadstone  rock  began  to  draw  towards  it 
the  boat  in  which  Oger  was.  Oger,  seeing  himself  thus 
taken,  recommended  his  soul  to  God,  saying,  '  My  God, 
my  Father  and  Creator,  who  hast  made  me  in  Thine  image 
and  semblance,  have  pity  on  me  now,  and  leave  me  not 
here  to  die ;  for  that  I  have  used  my  power  as  was  best  to 
the  increase  of  the  Catholic  faith.  But  if  it  must  be  that 
Thou  take  me,  I  commit  to  Thy  care  my  brother  Guyon, 
and  all  my  relatives  and  friends,  especially  my  nephew 
Gautier,  who  is  minded  to  serve  Thee  and  bring  the  pay- 
nim  within  Holy  Church.  .  .  .  Ah,  iny  God  !  had  I  known 
the  peril  of  this  adventure,  I  should  never  have  abandoned 
the  beauty,  sense,  and  honour  of  Clarice,  Queen  of  Eng- 
land. Had  I  but  gone  back  to  her  I  should  have  seen  too 
my  redoubted  sovereign,  Charlemagne,  with  all  the  princes 
who  surround  him.' 

Meanwhile  the  boat  continued  to  float  upon  the  water 
till  it  reached  the  loadstone  castle,  which  they  call  the 
Chateau  d'Avalon,  which  is  but  a  little  way  from  the 
Earthly  Paradise  whither  were  snatched  in  a  beam  of  fire 
Elias  and  Enoch,  and  where  was  Morgue  la  Fee,  who  at 
his  birth  had  given  him  such  great  gifts.  Then  the  mari- 
ners saw  well  that  they  were  drawing  near  to  the  load- 
stone rock,  and  they  said  to  Oger,  'My  lord,  commend 
thyself  to  God,  for  it  is  certain  that  at  this  moment  we 
are  come  to  our  voyage's  end ; '  and  as  they  spake  the  bark 
with  a  swing  attached  itself  to  the  rock,  as  though  it  were 
cemented  there. 

That  night  Oger  thought  over  the  case  in  which  he 
was,  but  he  scarce  could  tell  of  what  sort  it  might  be. 
And  the  sailors  came  and  said  to  Oger,  '  My  lord,  we  are 
held  here  without  remedy ;  wherefore  let  us  look  to  our 
having,  for  we  are  here  for  the  remainder  of  our  lives.' 
To  which  Oger  made  answer,  '  If  this  be  so,  then  will  I 
make  consideration  of  our  case,  for  I  would  assign  to 
each  one  his  share,  to  the  least  as  to  the  greatest.'  For 


454  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

liimself  Oger  kept  a  double  portion,  for  it  is  the  law  of  the 
sea  that  the  master  of  the  ship  has  as  much  as  two 
others.  But  if  that  rule  had  not  been  he  would  still  have 
needed  a  double  quantity,  for  he  ate  as  much  as  two 
common  men. 

When  Oger  had  apportioned  his  share  to  each  he  said, 
'Masters,  be  sparing,  I  pray  you,  of  your  food  as  much  as  you 
may ;  for  so  soon  as  ye  have  no  more  be  sure  that  I  myself 
will  throw  you  into  the  sea.'  The  skipper  answered  him, 
'My  lord,  thou  wilt  escape  no  better  than  we.'  Their 
food  failed  them  all,  one  after  another,  and  Oger  cast  them 
into  the  sea,  and  he  remained  alone.  Then  he  was  so 
troubled  that  he  knew  not  what  to  do.  '  Alas  !  my  God, 
my  Creator,'  said  he,  ( hast  Thou  at  this  hour  forsaken 
me  ?  I  have  now  no  one  to  comfort  me  in  my  misfortune.' 
Thereupon,  whether  it  were  his  fantasy  or  no,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  a  voice  replied,  f  God  orders  that  so  soon  as  it 
be  night  thou  go  to  a  castle  after  thou  hast  come  to  an 
island  which  thou  wilt  presently  find.  And  when  thou  art 
on  the  island  thou  wilt  find  a  small  path  leading  to  the 
castle.  And  whatsoever  thing  thou  seest  there,  let  not 
that  affray  thee.'  And  Oger  looked,  but  wist  not  who  had 
spoken. 

Oger  waited  the  return  of  night  to  learn  the  truth  of 
that  which  the  voice  foretold,  and  he  was  so  amazed  that 
he  wist  not  what  to  do,  but  set  himself  to  the  trial.  And 
when  night  came  he  committed  himself  to  God,  praying 
Him  for  mercy;  and  straightway  he  looked  and  beheld  the 
Castle  of  Avalon,  which  shone  wondrously.  Many  nights 
before  he  had  seen  it,  but  by  day  it  was  not  visible. 
Howbeit,  so  soon  as  Oger  saw  the  castle  he  set  about  to 
get  there.  He  saw  before  him  the  ships  that  were 
fastened  to  the  loadstone  rock,  and  now  he  walked  from 
ship  to  ship,  and  so  gained  the  island ;  and  when  there  h(f 
at  once  set  himself  to  scale  the  hill  by  a  path  which  he 
found.  When  he  reached  the  gate  of  the  castle,  and 
sought  to  enter,  there  came  before  him  two  great  lions, 


OGEK  THE  DANE.  455 

who  stopped  him  and  cast  him  to  the  ground.  But  Oger 
sprang  up  and  drew  his  sword  Curtain,  and  straightway 
cleft  one  of  them  in  twain ;  then  the  other  sprang  and 
seized  Oger  by  the  neck,  and  Oger  turned  round  and 
struck  off  his  head. 

When  Oger  had  performed  this  deed  he  gave  thanks 
to  our  Lord,  and  then  he  entered  the  hall  of  the  castle, 
where  he  found  many  viands,  and  a  table  set  as  if  one 
should  dine  there ;  but  no  prince  nor  lord  could  he  see. 
Now  he  was  amazed  to  find  no  one,  save  only  a  horse 
which  sat  at  the  table  as  if  it  had  been  a  human  being. 

We  need  not  follow  the  adventure  in  full  detail.  This 
horse,  which  was  called  Papillon  (Psyche?),  waited  upon 
Oger,  gave  him  to  drink  from  a  golden  goblet,  and  at 
length  conducted  him  to  his  chamber,  and  to  a  bed  whose 
fairy-made  coverlet  of  cloth  of  gold  and  ermine  was  la 
plus  mignonne  chose  qui  fut  jama  is  vue. 

When  Oger  awoke  he  thought  to  see  Papillon  again, 
but  could  see  neither  him,  nor  man,  nor  woman,  to  show 
him  the  way  from  the  room.  He  saw  a  door,  and,  having 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  sought  to  pass  out  that  way ; 
but  as  he  tried  to  do  this  he  encountered  a  serpent,  so 
hideous  that  the  like  has  scarce  been  seen.  It  would 
have  thrown  itself  upon  Oger,  but  that  the  knight  drew 
his  sword  and  made  the  creature  recoil  more  than  ten  feet; 
but  it  returned  with  a  bound,  for  it  was  very  mighty,  and 
the  twain  fell  to  fight.  And  now,  as  Oger  saw  that  the 
serpent  pressed  hard  upon  him,  he  struck  at  it  so  doughtily 
with  his  sword  that  he  severed  it  in  twain.  After  that 
Oger  went  along  a  path  which  led  him  to  a  garden,  so 
beauteous  that  it  was  in  truth  a  little  paradise,  and  within 
were  fair  trees,  bearing  fruit  of  every  kind,  of  tastes  divers, 
and  of  such  sweet  odours  that  never  smelt  trees  like  them 
before. 

Oger,  seeing  these  fruits  so  fine,  desired  to  eat  some, 
and  presently  he  lighted  upon  a  fine  apple  tree,  whose  fruit 
was  like  gold,  and  of  these  apples  he  took  one  and  ate. 


456  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

But  no  sooner  had  he  thus  eaten  than  he  became  so  sick 
and  weak  that  he  had  no  power  nor  manhood  left.  And 
now  again  he  commended  his  soul  to  God  and  prepared  to 
die.  .  .  .  But  at  this  moment  turning  round,  he  was  aware 
of  a  fair  dame,  clothed  in  white,  and  so  richly  adorned 
that  she  was  a  glory  to  behold.  Now  as  Oger  looked 
upon  the  lady  without  moving  from  his  place,  he  deemed 
that  she  was  Mary  the  Virgin,  and  said  *  Ave  Maria '  and 
saluted  her.  But  she  said,  'Oger,  think  not  that  I  am 
she  whom  you  fancy ;  I  am  she  who  was  at  your  birth,1 
and  my  name  is  Morgue  la  Fee,  and  I  allotted  you  a  gift 
which  was  destined  to  increase  your  fame  eternally  through 
all  lands.  But  now  you  have  left  your  deeds  of  war  to 
take  with  ladies  your  solace ;  for  as  soon  as  I  have  taken 
you  from  here  I  will  bring  you  to  Avalon,  where  you  will 
see  the  fairest  noblesse  in  the  world.' 

And  anon  she  gave  him  a  ring,  which  had  such  virtue 
that  Oger,  who  was  near  a  hundred  years  old,  returned  to 
the  age  of  thirty.  Then  said  Oger,  '  Lady,  I  am  more 
beholden  to  thee  than  to  any  other  in  the  world.  Blessed 
be  the  hour  of  thy  birth ;  for,  without  having  done  aught 
to  deserve  at  your  hands,  you  have  given  me  countless  gifts, 
and  this  gift  of  new  life  above  them  all.  Ah,  lady,  that 
I  were  before  Charlemagne,  that  he  might  see  the  con- 
dition in  which  I  now  stand ;  for  I  feel  in  me  greater 
strength  than  I  have  ever  known.  Dearest,  how  can  I 
make  return  for  the  honour  and  great  good  you  have  done 
me  ?  But  I  swear  that  I  am  at  your  service  all  the  days 
of  my  life.'  Then  Morgue  took  him  by  the  hand  and 
said,  c  My  loyal  friend,  the  goal  of  all  my  happiness,  I 
will  now  lead  you  to  my  palace  in  Avalon,  where  you  will 
see  of  noblesse  the  greatest  and  of  damosels  the  fairest.' 


1  The  fairies  were,  like  the  Parcae  or  Moerae,  especially  frequent  attend- 
ants at  births.  This  fact  our  fairy  tales  have  made  sufficiently  familiar  to 
all.  Among  the  instances  of  the  attendance  of  the  classic  fates  at  birth 
we  have  the  births  of  lamos  (Pindar,  Olym.  vi.)  and  of  Meleagros  (Ovid, 
Met.  viii.  454),  &c. 


OGEE  THE  DANE.  457 

And  she  took  Oger  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  the  Castle 
of  Avalon,  where  was  King  Artus,  and  Auberon,  and 
Malambron,  who  was  a  sea  fairy. 

As  Oger  approached  the  castle  the  fairies  came  to  meet 
him,  dancing  and  singing  marvellous  sweetly.  And  he  saw 
many  fairy  dames,  richly  crowned  and  apparelled.  And 
presently  came  Arthur,  and  Morgue  called  to  him  and  said, 
'  Come  hither,  my  lord  and  brother,  and  salute  the  fail- 
flower  of  chivalry,  the  honour  of  the  French  noblesse,  him 
in  whom  all  generosity  and  honour  and  every  virtue  are 
lodged,  Oger  le  Dannois,  my  loyal  love,  my  only  pleasure, 
in  whom  lies  for  me  all  hope  of  happiness.'  Then  Morgue 
gave  Oger  a  crown  to  wear,  which  was  so  rich  that  none 
here  could  count  its  value ;  and  it  had  beside  a  wondrous 
virtue,  for  every  man  who  bore  it  on  his  brow  forgot  all 
sorrow  and  sadness  and  melancholy,  and  he  thought  no 
more  of  his  country  nor  of  his  kin  that  he  had  left  behind 
him  in  the  world. 

We  leave  Oger  thus  'bien  assis  et  entretenu  des 
dames  que  c'etait  merveilles,'  and  return  to  the  earth, 
where  things  were  not  going  so  well ;  for  while  Oger  was 
in  Fairie  the  paynim  assembled  all  their  forces  and  took 
Jerusalem  and  proceeded  to  lay  siege  to  Babylon  (i.e. 
Cairo).  Then  the  most  valiant  knights  who  were  left  on 
earth — Moysant,  and  Florian,  and  Caraheu,  and  Gautier 
(Oger's  nephew) — assembled  all  their  powers  to  defend  this 
place.  But  they  lamented  greatly  because  Oger  was  no 
more.  And  a  great  battle  took  place  without  the  walls 
of  Babylon,  in  which  the  Saracens,  assisted  by  a  renegade, 
the  Admiral  Gandice,  gained  the  victory. 

Oger  had  been  long  in  the  Castle  of  Avalon,  and  had 
begotten  a  son  by  Morgue,  when  she,  having  heard  of 
these  doings  and  of  the  danger  to  Christendom,  deemed  it 
needful  to  awake  Oger  from  his  blissful  forgetfulness  of  all 
earthly  things  and  tell  him  that  his  presence  was  needed 
in  this  world  once  more.  Thereupon  follows  an  account  of 
Oger's  returning  to  earth,  where  no  one  knew  him,  and 


458  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

all  were  astonished  at  his  strange  garb  and  bearing.  He 
enquired  for  Charlemagne,  who  had  been  long  since  dead; 
the  generation  below  Oger  had  grown  to  be  old  men,  yet 
he  still  had  the  habit  of  a  man  of  thirty.  We  need  not 
wonder  that  his  talk  excited  suspicion.  But  at  length  he 
made  himself  known  to  the  King  of  France,  joined  his 
army,  and  put  the  paynim  to  flight.  He  had  now  forgotten 
his  life  in  Fairie,  he  was  beloved  by  the  Queen  of  France 
(the  King  having  been  killed)  and  was  about  to  marry 
her,  when  Morgue  again  appeared  and  carried  him  off  to  . 
Avalon. 

It  need  not  bo  said  that  this  story  of  the  return  of  the 
hero  to  earth  is  an  essential  in  the  legend  of  the  Earthly 
Paradise.  In  this  way  among  others  found  expression 
that  favourite  myth  of  the  Middle  Age  of  the  sleeping  hero 
who,  though  withdrawn  for  awhile  from  the  world  and  its 
combats,  was  yet  to  come  back  again  some  day,  and  at  the 
hour  of  his  country's  supreme  need  stand  in  irresistible 
might  at  the  side  of  her  warriors,  ready  to  strike  a  final 
blow  for  her  deliverance.  This  myth,  I  say,  was  universal 
and  fondly  cherished.  Probably  the  sleeping  hero  was  at 
first  the  old  national  god,  still  dear  to  peasants'  hearts. 
That  old  god  might  serve  for  a  symbol  of  the  time  when 
these  peasants  themselves  were  freer  and  more  warlike 
than  they  had  become.  For  gradually  arms  were  taken 
from  the  hands  of  the  freemen  and  the  bonders,  and  they 
sank  to  the  condition  of  serfs.  They  were  buried,  like 
Thorr  and  Wuotan,  beneath  a  mountain  of  new  laws  which 
they  could  not  shake  off. 

When  the  national  god  was  forgotten  a  national  hero 
became  the  symbol  of  the  sleeping  past.  Where  Wuotan 
had  once  slumbered  there  now  lay  Charlemagne  or  Frede- 
rick Eedbeard ;  and  on  his  heart  weighed  the  mass  of  an 
immense  mountain,  which  yet  moved  with  his  breathing. 
Or  otherwise  it  was  said  that  the  hero  had  gone,  like 
Oger,  to  the  far-off  Earthly  Paradise,  and  would  return 
again  when  most  needed,  as  Oger  did. 


THE  PARADISE  KNIGHT.  459 

From  tne  legends  of  this  class  are  to  be  derived  some 
of  those  bright  but  misty  figures  the  Paradise  Knights, 
who  move  across  the  field  of  popular  lore,  coming  no  one 
knows  from  whence  and  when  their  work  is  done  going 
away  no  one  knows  whither.  But  there  is  another  order  of 
these  half- celestial  beings — the  knights  who  are  born  in 
Paradise.  Of  Oger  himself  it  is  recorded  that  he  became 
by  Morgue  the  father  of  Mervain,  and  that  this  Mervain 
was  a  valiant  knight  in  the  days  of  Hugh  Capet. 

Indeed,  as  human  beings,  knights  and  dames,  may  be 
transported  to  the  deathless  land  without  undergoing  death 
or  changing  their  earthly  nature,  taking  their  soidas  arid 
all  the  enjoyments  of  our  world,  children,  it  is  clear,  may 
be  born  in  that  place  ;  and  these  Paradise  children,  though 
they  have  powers  above  the  range  of  common  mortality, 
yet  are  in  no  way  separated  in  interests  from  their  fellow 
men.  They  may  long  to  come  to  the  common  earth  and 
perform  here  deeds  of  knight-errantry,  and  then  to  go 
back  again  if  their  work  is  over  or  they  themselves  un- 
thankfully  treated,  as  such  celestial  messengers  often  are. 
Hence  we  have  that  beautiful  and  universal  German  myth 
of  the  child  who  comes  earthward  from  the  immortal  land. 
As  the  hero  goes  away  to  Avalon  in  a  boat,  so  this  child 
comes  wafted  in  a  boat  to  some  shore,  or  down  some 
river.  The  child  is  sleeping;  no  one  knows  whence  it  has 
fared.1 

In  the  introduction  to  Beowulf  it  is  said  that  his 
father,  Scyld,  was  after  his  death  borne  to  a  ship  and 
placed  in  it  £  with  no  less  gifts  provided  than  they  gave 
him  who  at  the  beginning  sent  him  forth  over  the  wave, 
being  a  child.'  The  legend  here  alluded  to  is  that  this 
child  had  bee  a  borne  in  a  boat  without  sail  or  oar  to  the 

'  In  certain  legends  of  saints  a  ship  floats  against  stream,  bearing 
their  remains  to  a  fit  resting-place.  The  remains  of  St.  Marternus  were  in 
this  way  carried  up  the  Rhine  in  a  rudderless  boat  and  deposited  at 
Rodenkirchen.  The  remains  of  St.  Emmeranus  were  carried  from  the  Iser 
to  the  Danube,  and  thence  up  stream  to  Ratisbon.  See  Simrock,  Handbuch 
der  D.  M.,  285 


460  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

shore  of  Scandinavia,1  and  that  he  was  afterwards  chosen 
to  be  king  of  that  land.  There  is  a  mistake  made  by  the 
author  of  Beowulf  when  he  attributes  this  history  to  Scyld, 
for  the  name  should  be  Sceaf,  the  father  of  Scyld ;  but  this 
is  of  no  consequence.  The  outlines  of  the  legend  stand 
clear ;  and  this  legend  gives  the  normal  form  of  the  myth. 
The  child  born  in  Paradise  is  wafted  by  an  unknown  bark 
from  that  unknown  shore ;  he  becomes  king  of  the  people 
of  his  adoption.  After  death  (or  before  it,  when  his  work 
is  done)  he  is  again  carried  away  in  a  boat  to  Paradise. 
Among  the  many  mediseval  forms  of  this  myth  one  is 
the  legend  of  the  Swan  Knight,  of  which  one  special  form 
is  the  story  of  Lohengrin  of  Brabant.2 

Lohengrin  was  son  of  Sir  Percival,  who,  having  been 
while  in  the  world  long  in  search  for  the  Holy  Grail,  had 
been  snatched  up  to  a  Fellowship  of  the  Holy  Grail  in 
another  world.  In  this  Paradise  Lohengrin  was  born.. 
Then,  at  the  prayer  of  Else  of  Brabant,  he  was  sent  into 
the  world  to  be  her  champion  and  to  prove  her  innocence. 
He  married  her  and  became  Duke  of  Brabant.  But  the 
condition  of  his  staying  by  her  side  was  that  she  should 
never  ask  his  name,  and  this  condition  she  disregarded. 
So  once  again  the  mystic  boat  came  sailing  down  the 
Rhine ;  and  Lohengrin  entered  it  once  more,  and  was  then 
lost,  for  ever  to  the  world  of  men.  But  there  is  no  need  to 
retell  this  tale  to-day.  Since  this  swan  knight  left  the 
world  of  popular  lore  he  had  slept  in  men's  remembrance 
till  yesterday,  when  the  wand  of  the  magician  again  called 
him  back  from  the  Paradise  or  Limbo  of  forgotten  legends. 
And  now  he  has  been  reborn  for  us  '  with  no  less  gifts  pro- 
vided,' surrounded  with  a  no  less  splendid  halo  of  poetry 
and  beauty  than  they  gave  him  who  first  sent  him  to 
wander  through  the  seas  of  human  thought. 

1  '  Insula  oceani  quae  dicito  Scania.' — Chron.  EtMltv.  in.  3. 

'In  quamdam   iiisulam    Scanzam,   de   qua   Jornandes   historiographus 
Gothorum  loquitur.' — Wm,  of  Malmesbury. 

2  See  Grimm's  Deutsche  Sagen,  ii.  256  sqq.,  for  this  legend,  and  several 
others  of  the  same  kind. 


SURVIVAL  OF  HEATHENISM.  461 


CHAPTER  X. 

HEATHENISM   IN   THE    MIDDLE   AGES. 

THE  heathenism  of  Northern  Europe  cannot  fully  be 
studied  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  heathen  literature  and 
to  heathen  times  alone  ;  for  its  beliefs  are  to  be  detected 
lurking  in  many  secret  places  of  the  Catholicism  of  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  na}r,  for  that  matter,  they  are  to  be  dis- 
covered in  contemporary  creeds.  We  have  already  seen 
this  in  part,  for  while  tracing  out  some  special  phases  of 
belief — those,  namely,  which  were  concerned  with  the 
future  state — we  found  ourselves  insensibly  being  carried 
on  from  the  mythology  of  the  ancient  Germans  and  Celts 
and  of  the  Norsemen  to  similar  myths  which  were  cur- 
rent during  the  Middle  Ages.  We  found  ourselves  pass- 
ing, almost  without  intermission,  from  Helheim  to  the 
mediaeval  purgatory,  and  from  the  heathen  notions  touching 
the  Earthly  Paradise  to  the  notions  concerning  the  same 
place  which  were  in  vogue  in  the  tenth  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies. 

What  we  have  thus  done  in  part  and  for  particular 
elements  of  belief  we  ought  to  try  and  do  for  the  whole. 
In  a  rough  way  we  ought  to  try  and  discover  what  strain 
of  heathenism  still  lingered  in  the  Christianity  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  how  far  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
men  of  those  days  was  a  legacy  from  the  past  life  and 
thought  of  the  heathen  days  which  had  been  before  them. 
But  this  subject  is  an  immense  one,  and  cannot  possibly  be 
duly  dealt  with  in  one  chapter.  It  can,  at  the  very  best, 
only  be  sketched  in  merest  outline,  and  presented  in  a 
most  fragmentary  form.  Wherefore  what  is  set  down  in 


462  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  concluding  pages  of  this  volume  is  meant  as  a  help  to 
the  reader  to  recover  for  himself  the  threads  of  heathen 
beliefs  which  run  through  mediseval  Catholicism  rather 
than  an  attempt  .to  draw  out  these  threads  in  due  order  or 
to  trace  their  various  interlacings.  Be  it  remembered, 
too,  that  it  is  not  into  the  ethical  parts  of  Catholicism 
that  we  are  going  to  make  enquiry.  It  were  far  too  great 
a  task  to  attempt  to  decide  what  elements  in  the  moral 
creed  of  the  Middle  Ages  can  be  traced  back  to  heathen- 
ism, and  truly  affiliated  to  the  beliefs  of  heathen  Europe, 
and  what  elements  are  really  Christian.  Moreover,  though 
our  space  were  unlimited,  that  enquiry  would  always  lie 
beyond  the  sphere  of  this  work.  At  the  very  outset  of 
this  volume  all  intention  was  disclaimed  of  wandering 
into  the  domain  of  morals.  The  kind  of  belief  which  has 
throughout  been  our  study  is  that  which  is  in  its  essen- 
tials independent  of  the  moral  code.  If  ethics  have  en- 
tered here  and  there,  they  have  come  in,  as  we  said  they 
would  do,  only  by  the  way. 

But  another  thing  which  was  laid  down  at  the  outset 
of  the  volume  was  this  :  that  very  early  phases  of  belief 
may  subsist  side  by  side  with  phases  of  much  higher 
development ;  and  that  we  are  quite  at  liberty,  if  we 
choose,  to  stray  into  these  later  fields  in  search  of  the 
early  '  formations  '  and  nothing  more.  Much,  no  doubt, 
of  mediseval  Catholicism — nay,  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
it — shows  an  advanced  stage  of  religious  growth.  As  a 
whole  the  creed  lies  far  beyond  that  initial  phase  of  mono- 
theism which  elsewhere  we  posed  as  the  limits  of  our 
special  field  of  enquiry ;  but  there  is  yet  something  left  in 
Catholicism  as  a  legacy  from  early  days.  It  is  in  quest 
of  thes*e  elements  only  that  we  turn  to  the  study  of  it 
now. 

To  say  that  we  abandon  the  ethical  parts  of  the  creed 
is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  we  turn  to  search  in 
mediaeval  Christianity  for  those  parts  of  it  which  spring 
most  directly  from  the  contact  of  man  with  outward 


MYTHOLOGY   OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES.  4Go 

nature.  For  it  is  by  contact  with  outward  nature  that 
primitive  phases  of  belief  are  formed.  It  is  essential  to 
the  existence  of  these  early  strata  of  creeds  that  man 
should  be  still  in  a  direct  communion  with  external  things, 
just  as  it  is  necessary  to  the  growth  of  the  later  and 
ethical  strata  that  man  should  be,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
withdrawn  from  outside  nature  into  himself;  that  he 
should  have  become,  in  a  certain  degree,  self-conscious 
and  introspective.  Wherefore  we  must  look  to  the  outer 
regions  of  belief  only.  We  must  neglect  all  the  higher 
aspects  of  Catholicism  in  neglecting  all  its  ethical  and 
reflective  side.  But  this  is  the  only  way  to  bring  the 
creed  within  the  sphere  of  our  present  enquiry. 

It  is  a  thing  to  be  remembered  that  the  Middle,  or,  as 
we  call  them,  the  dark,  Ages  are  essentially  ages  of 
mythology  and  not  of  history.  To  this  they  owe  their 
character  of  darkness.  They  are  dim  to  the  historian, 
or,  at  any  rate,  to  that  historian  who  goes  to  them  in  the 
quest  of  naked  fact.  In  the  chronicles  of  these  times  we 
search  in  vain  for  anything  which  will  help  to  form  a 
complete  or  a  true  picture  of  the  Catholic  world — of 
society  in  those  days,  of  its  life  and  thought  and  aspira- 
tions. Each  separate  chronicle  has  been  written  in  a 
corner  by  one  who  had  no  conception  of  the  world  beyond 
his  own  horizon.  His  outlook  was  generally  that  of  a 
priest  confined  to  a  narrow  cell.  Few  as  are  the  actual 
facts  which  have  come  down  to  us,  even  these  are  robbed 
of  the  best  part  of  their  significance  from  appearing  so 
disjointed  as  they  do  and  without  perspective.  For  we 
need- to  see  not  single  objects  but  a  succession  of  things 
before  we  can  form  a  conception  of  the  size  or  the  distance 
of  any  one  thing  among  them.  In  the  histories  of  this 
time  isolated  occurrences  loom  for  a  moment  out  of  the 
mist  and  then  disappear  into  it  again.  There  is  no 
grand  panorama  of  events.  And  all  the  characters  who 
figure  in  these  dramas  are  dim  and  shadowy,  like  the 
creations  of  a  dream. 


464  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

In  place,  however,  of  what  we  can  fairly  call  history, 
there  was,  during  all  the  dark  ages,  a  copious  growth  of 
myth ;  and  mythology  is  itself  a  kind  of  history.  In  the 
mythology  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  are  allowed  to  see  much 
,of  what  the  chroniclers  keep  from  us.  The  myths  hold 
up  before  us  the  world  picture  of  the  time.  It  is  certainly 
an  ideal  and  not  an .  actual  world  which  they  present,  but 
then  the  most  ideal  creations  have  somewhere  a  foundation 
in  actuality  and  fact.  The  legend  and  the  belief  of  this 
age  is  of  more  value  than  its  naked  history,  for  legend  and 
belief  then  formed  almost  the  greater  part  of  men's  lives  ; 
out  of  legend  and  myth  their  world  was  constructed.  The 
dark  ages  of  medieval  history  are,  in  reality,  pre- 
historic ages,  though  it  may  seem  paradoxical  to  say  so 
much.  And  the  time  before  history  begins,  the  time 
when  men  are  less  engaged  in  noting  what  does  happen 
than  in  fancying  what  might  happen,  this  is  the  golden 
age  for  myth  and  legend. 

German  folk  tales  delight  above  all  things  in  that 
portrait  of  the  youngest  son  of  the  house — he  is  the  youngest 
of  three — who  is  left  behind  despised  and  neglected  when 
his  brothers  go  forth  to  seek  their  fortunes.  He  is  too 
childish  or  too  lazy  to  be  trusted  with  the  magic  wallet  or 
staff  which  the  father  has  bequeathed  as  their  sole  fortune 
among  his  sons.  So  the  other  two  go  forth.  Each  in  turn 
tries  his  luck,  and  each  returns  with  failure.  Then  it 
comes  to  the  turn  of  the  youngest.  He  tries  and  does  not 
fail.  In  English  stories  we  call  this  hero  Boots.  '  There 
he  sits,  idle  whilst  all  work ;  there  he  lies,  with  that  deep 
irony  of  conscious  power  which  knows  that  its  time  must 
one  day  come  and  till  then  can  afford  to  wait.  When 
that  day  comes  he  girds  himself  to  the  fight  amidst  the 
scoff  and  scorn  of  his  flesh  and  blood  ;  but  even  then,  after 
he  has  done  some  great  deed,  he  conceals  it,  and  again 
sits  idly  by  the  kitchen  fire,  dirty,  lazy,  despised,  until 
the  time  for  final  recognition  comes,  and  then  his  dirt  and 


THE  HEARTH  CHILD.  465 

rags  fall  off — lie  stands  out  in  all  the  majesty  of  his  royal 
robes,  and  is  acknowledged  once  for  all  a  king.' l 

The  Germans  of  Germany,  who,  in  their  folk  tales, 
have  made  this  character  so  especially  their  own,  might 
well  have  been  led  to  do  this  by  a  lingering  memory  of 
their  own  history.  They  are  the  '  Boots '  of  Teutonic  his- 
tory during  the  era  of  the  fall  of  Rome  and  of  the  barbarian 
invasions  of  Roman  territory.  The  elder  brothers — that  is 
to  say,  the  grown-up  sons  of  the  tribe — first  went  forth. 
Behind,  in  the  ancestral  village,  beneath  the  immemorial 
shade  of  the  village  trees,  they  left  the  old  and  the  very 
young,  the  father  of  the  family  and  the  '  hearth  child,'  as 
the  youngest  son  is  still  described  in  our  law  of  Borough 
English.  That  youngest  son  was  to  have  a  destiny  of  his  own, 
different  from  theirs.  From  his  loins  were  to  spring  the 
modern  Germans  of  Germany.  But  this  Boots  and  his 
doings  we  will,  as  the  stories  do,  for  the  present  leave,  and 
go  forth  with  the  elder  brothers  upon  their  travels.  The 
stalwart  sons  of  the  house  collect  under  their  leaders 
(heretogas),  throw  up  into  the  air  a  lance  or  a  feather, 
and  let  Fate,  in  directing  its  fall  or  flight,  show  them  the 
way  they  are  to  go. 

At  the  time  when  the  era  of  invasion  first  dawned  the 
German  people  had  so  long  led  a  settled  life  that  their 
gods  must  have  seemed  to  grow  settled  too,  and  even 
Odhinn,  the  wandering  wind,  must  have  been  by  each 
tribe  narrowed  into  the  wind  which  haunted  its  special 
corner  of  the  forest.  It  must,  therefore,  have  been  that 
the  Germans  who  quitted  their  homes  and  made  their 
way  southward  or  westward  into  Italy,  or  Gaul,  or  Spain, 
felt  that  they  were  leaving  their  ancient  deities  behind, 
and  were  migrating  into  the  territory  of  new  gods.2 
They  fared  forth  much  as  Thorr  had  fared  into  Jotunheim, 
unknowing  what  magic  spells  might  be  weaving  for  them 
there. 

1  Dasent,  Norse  Tales,  introd.  p.  cliv. 

2  See  Milrnan,  Hist.  Lat.  Christ,  i.  338. 

H    H 


466  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

It  happened  ill  with  their  ancient  gods,  as  it  had 
happened  with  Thorr ;  for  though  the  German  invaders 
overthrew  the  power  of  the  Roman  Empire,  they  were  in 
their  turn  overthrown  by  the  God  of  the  country  into 
which  they  came ;  they  all,  one  after  another,  abjured 
the  faith  of  Odhinn  and  adopted  that  of  Christ.  More 
than  that,  they  were,  to  a  certain  extent,  subdued  by  the 
nations  whom  they  conquered ;  they  became  denationalised 
and  ceased  to  be  Germans,  exchanging  their  rough  Teu- 
tonic speech  for  the  softer  language  of  the  Latins.  It 
was  by  these  conversions  that  the  foundations  of  mediseval 
history  were  laid. 

Between  the  beginning  of  the  Teutonic  invasions  of 
Roman  territory  and  the  actual  dawn  of  mediaeval  history 
occurred  a  long  dark  period  of  transition,  which  was 
occupied  in  the  gradual  and  complete  destruction  of  the 
Roman  Empire  by  the  barbarian  hordes.  At  one  time  in 
many  simultaneous  streams  from  different  quarters,  and 
anon  in  successive  waves  of  invasion  from  one  direction, 
the  sea  of  barbarism  submerged  the  ancient  fabric  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  From  Msesia  came  the  Visigoths  und&r 
Alaric,  who  thrice  invaded  Italy  and  laid  siege  to  Rome, 
and  who  at  last  took  the  imperial  city  and  sacked  it.  To 
their  invasion,  which  did  eventually  flow  away  in  a  side 
stream  without  completing  the  destruction  of  the  Western 
Empire,  succeeded  the  more  permanent  conquests  of  the 
Ostrogoths,  to  be  in  their  turn  succeeded  by  those  of  the 
Lombards.  And  in  the  meantime  to  the  north  of  the  Alps 
there  first  came,  from  beyond  the  Rhine  into  Gaul,  the 
miscellaneous  army  of  the  Suevi,  Alani,  Burgundians,  and 
Vandals.  Some  (the  Burgundians)  settled  in  Gaul;  the 
others  passed  on  into  Spain,  and  some  from  Spain  to 
Africa.  Then  followed  the  stronger  power  of  the  Franks, 
who  eventually  overcame  all  their  kindred  German  peoples, 
arid  wrested  from  them  the  whole  of  Gaul,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  small  district  in  the  south.1 

1  Narbonne,  which  long  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  Visigoths. 


THE  NIBELUNGEtf.  467 

The  details  of  the  contemporary  conquest  of  our  own 
island  by  the  Angles  and  Saxons  do  not  need  to  be 
recalled.  The  history  of  this  era  must  needs  seem  to 
the  student  little  less  than  a  shifting  of  scenes  or  a 
pageant  of  players.  By  most  writers  it  has  been  passed 
over  as  if  it  were  no  more  than  this.  It  is  not  an  attractive 
epoch  of  history.  It  would  be  difficult,  as  Hallam  says,1 
to  find  anywhere  more  vice  or  less  virtue  than  in  the 
records  of  this  time.  Along  with  the  tragic  dramas  of 
these  days  there  mingles  sometimes  a  ghastly  air  of 
comedy,  which  suggests  the  idea  of  beings  with  the  intel- 
lects of  children  inflamed  by  the  fury  of  fiends.2  But, 
despite  the  meanness  and  the  horror  which  meet  together 
in  the  history  of  this  age,  it  was  an  epoch  of  great  im- 
portance in  the  development  of  the  German  race.  Out  of 
it  was  born  at  least  one  great  thing — namely,  the  greatest 
surviving  epic  in  the  German  tongue.3 

For  I  hold  that  the  foundations  of  the  Mbelungen 
poem  were  undoubtedly  laid  at  this  time.  Nor,  if  we  con- 
sider what  a  time  of  stir  and  excitement  it  was  for  the 
invading  nations,  will  it  appear  strange  that  anything  so 
considerable  as  a  national  epic  should  have  been  the 
result.  Myths  arise  at  many  periods  of  a  nation's  life, 
and  these  myths  weave  themselves  into  the  nation's  early 
history  and  belief.  But  an  epic  springs  up  only  occa- 
sionally, and  in  times  which,  whatever  else  they  may  be, 
are  not  ordinary  ones. 

We  can  hardly  assign   any  period   which   seems   so 

1  Echoing  the  words  of  Gibbon. 

2  Take  for  an  example  the  account  which   Gregory  of  Tours  gives  us 
of  how  Theodoric,  the  son  of  Clovis,  sought  to  compass  the  death  of  his 
brother  Clotaire.     He  invited  Clotaire  to  a  conference  in  a  room  wherein 
he  had  meant  to  conceal  behind  a  curtain  a  band  of  assassins.    But  the 
curtain  was  too  short,  and  the  men's  legs  were  visible  ;  so  Clotaire  got 
wind  of  the  matter  and  came  armed  with  a  great  company  of  his  own 
people. — Greg.  Tiir.  iii.  7. 

3  The  conversion  of  the  Germans  to  Christianity  might  be  deemed  the 
great  event  of  this  era.     So  in  one  sense  it  was.     But  no  fruits  of  it  were 
visible  until  the  succeeding  age. 

H  H  2 


168  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

appropriate  to  the  growth  of  the  Mbelungen  epic— or 
let  me  say  the  Nibelungen  cycle  of  epics,  for  there  are 
many  poems  which  belong  to  this  class — as  the  era  of  the 
Teutonic  conquests.  Some  relics  of  the  traditions  of  that 
day  may  be  traced  in  the  events  and  the  characters  of  the 
drama.  And  we  must  confess  that  while,  on  the  one  hand, 
no  time  was  so  likely  to  give  birth  to  a  great  German  epic 
as  the  time  I  speak  of,  so  also  there  is  no  other  creation  of 
the  German  genius  which  can  with  reasonable  probability 
be  held  to  have  sprung  up  at  that  time.  When  a  national 
epic  has  begun  to  take  shape,  it  inevitably  follows  that 
many  ancient  myths,  which  were  when  alone  comparatively 
commonplace,  group  themselves  about  the  hero  or  the 
circumstance  which  the  epic  commemorates ;  like  common 
people  wanting  a  leader,  who  range  themselves  under  the 
standard  of  a  renowned  chieftain.  I  do  not  say  that  no 
songs  and  no  stories  like  the  Nibelungen  had  been  sung  in. 
earlier  days  than  these  great  days  of  invasion  and  conquest ; 
but  I  say  that  it  needed  some  mighty  and  sudden  move- 
ment of  society  before  these  fragments  could  crystallise 
into  a  single  epic  poem.  Tacitus  has  left  on  record  the 
Germans'  inveterate  habit  of  composing  war  songs  to 
celebrate  the  deeds  of  ancient  days.  Some  of  these  stories 
may  have  gone  to  form  a  part  of  the  Nibelungen.  But 
we  may  fairly  suppose  that  at  the  time  of  which  we  are 
speaking — the  era  of  the  barbarian  invasions — the  greater 
number  of  the  old  legends  gave  place  to  new  ones,  suggested 
by  the  fresh  life  into  which  the  Germans  entered. 

The  actual  poem  which  has  come  down  to  us  with  the 
name  of  the  Nibelungen- Lied,  or  Nibelunge-Not  (Slaughter 
of  the  Nibelungs),  is  of  quite  a  late  period  in  mediaeval 
history.  It  belongs  almost  to  the  era  of  the  Revival  of 
Paganism  in  the  Renaissance.  It  is  of  the  time  of  the 
Hohenstaufen  Emperors  of  Germany.  The  main  object  of 
the  story  seems  to  have  been  to  a  great  extent  lost  sight 
of  in  the  more  modern  extant  poem,  and  subsidiary  events 
to  have  been  enlarged  so  as  to  occupy  the  chief  space  in 


THE  NIBELUNGEN.  409 

the  canvas.  It  is  only  by  comparing  this  poem  with 
others  which  contain  similar  actions  that  we  can  recognise 
the  features  of  the  original  story.  The  incidents  common 
to  all  are  of  course  the  most  antique.  The  other  poems 
beside  which  I  place  the  Nibelungen  are  those  of  the 
Volsung  Saga  in  the  North,  including  lays  which  ha,ve 
found  a  place  in  the  Edda,  and  the  English  poem  Beowulf. 
These  together  we  may  call  the  Nibelungen  cycle  of  epic 
poems.1 

Of  these  three  the  earliest  in  date  is  Beowulf.  The 
portion  of  this  poem  which  is  akin  to  the  stories  of  the 
Volsungs  and  of  the  Nibelungs  is  not  that  of  which  a 
sketch  was  given  in  the  Seventh  Chapter,  but  the  con- 
cluding part  which  tells  of  the  fight  between  Beowulf 
and  a  great  dragon  which  infested  his  land.  The  dragon 
was  the  guardian  of  an  ancient  '  heathen  hoard '  of  gold, 

1  It  has  been  maintained  by  some  writers  that  the  Volsung  Saga  is 
nothing  else  than  a  plagiarism  from  the  Nibelungen.  But  the  arguments 
in  controversion  of  this  view  are  of  overwhelming  force.  In  the  first  place 
a  story  of  the  Volsungs  was  knowa  to  the  author  of  Beowulf. 

....  Hwylc  gecwae'S  >aet  he  fram  Sigemunde 
Secgan  hyrde  ;  ellen-d^edum  ; 
Uncu>es  fela,  Waslsinges  gewin. 

Sigemonde  gesprong,  aefter  dea"S-daege 

Dom  unlytel ;  syftan  wiges  heard 

Wyrm  acwealde.  ...  ...  1.  1758,  &c. 

He  told  all  that  of  Sigmund 

He  had  heard  say  ;  of  deeds  reaounded ; 

Of  strange  things  many ;  the  Wselsing's  victories. 

To  Sigmond  ensued  after  his  death-day 
No  little  glory,  when  the  fierce  in  fight 
The  worm  had  slain. 

The  hero  of  the  adventure  was  at  first  Sigmund— at  least  this  was  so  in 
the  North.  It  is  possible  that  the  name  of  Sigurd  is  taken  from  Siegfried. 
This  evidence  is  alone,  I  should  have  supposed,  tolerably  decisive.  But 
even  without  the  aid  of  the  passage  just  quoted  the  elements  of  the 
Volsung  tale  in  Beowulf,  the  intermediate  condition  of  the  Volsun^a  Saga 
between  Beowulf  and  the  Nibelungen,  the  remains  of  ancient  heathen 
belief  in  it  which  have  been  entirely  forgotten  in  the  Nibelungen- Lied 
(see  Chaps.  VII.  and  VIII.),  are  tolerably  decisive  evidence  of  the  antiquity 
and  originality  of  the  Northern  epic. 


470  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

and  Beowulf  in  killing  the  worm  set  free  that  treasure. 
But  he  could  not  himself  enjoy  it — or  could  for  a  brief 
moment  only — for  he  had  received  a  mortal  hurt  in  the 
combat,  and  almost  immediately  after  it  was  over  he  died. 
This  is  a  very  short  and  a  very  simple  incident.  But  it 
contains  what  is,  I  suspect,  the  most  germain  matter  of 
the  original  epic  of  this  cycle.  In  the  Volsung  lays  1  the 
story  is  considerably  expanded.  We  have  first  the  history 
of  Sigurd's  fight  with  the  worm  Fafnir,  which  reproduces 
the  distinctive  characteristics  of  Beowulf's  fight  with  his 
dragon,  only  with  this  difference,  that  Sigurd  was  not 
killed  in  the  encounter.2  He  died  from  a  different 
immediate  cause.  But  still  the  slaying  of  Fafnir  was  the 
final  cause  of  his  death ;  for  it  seems  to  have  been  through 
greed  of  the  gold  of  Fafnir,  as  much  as  from  any  otber 
motive,  that  Sigurd  was  treacherously  slain  by  Gunnar  and 
Hogni.3  In  these  Volsung  poems  many  fresh  elements 
are  introduced  into  the  story.  As  the  tale  now  goes  we 
have  first  the  finding  of  Brynhild  by  Sigurd  and  the  vows 
which  these  exchange;  then  the  oblivious  potion  admi- 
nistered to  Sigurd  and  his  marriage  with  Godrun ;  then 
Brynhild's  revenge,  the  death  of  Sigurd,  and  Brynhild's 
own  suicide ;  and  last  of  all  Godrun's  vengeance  on  the 
murderers  of  Sigurd  and  the  ensuing  slaughter  of  the 
Mflungs. 

In  the  actual  ISTibelungen-Lied,  which  I  take  to  be  the 
latest   of  all  the  forms  of  the  epic,  the  finding  of  the 

1  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  lays  of  the  Volsunga  Saga  are 
the  oldest  portions  of  it. 

2  Not  at  least  in  the  story  in  its  present  form.     But  I  have  little  doubt 
that  in  an  earlier  account  Sigurd,  after  the  fight  with  Fafnir,  did  descend 
into  the  House  of  Death ;   for  the  next  thing  which  he  did   was   to   go 
through  the  fire  at  Hindarfjoll  to  wake  Brynhild  from  her  sleep  of  death. 
This  fire,  as  was  shown  in  Chap.  VIII.,  is  a  symbol  ot  death.    Thus  the  myth 
has  been  obscured  by  time  in  the  same  way  in  which  came  to  be  obscured 
Apollo's  descent  to  Admetus-Hades  after  his  serpent  fight. 

3  According  to  one  account    Sigurd  was  actually  done  to   death   by 
Guthorm,  the  younger  brother  of  these  two.     But  (as  is  said  in  the  Drop 
Niflwiga)  Gunnar  and  Hogni  divided  between  them  Fafnir's  gold. 


THE  NIBELUNGEN.  471 

treasure  has  been  almost  left  out  of  account,  and  now 
the  whole  history  is  of  the  jealousies  of  Brynhild  and 
Godrun  and  of  the  murders  which  ensue  therefrom.  Yet 
even  in  this  latest  poem  the  possession  by  Sigurd  of  the 
treasure  of  the  Nibelungs,  otherwise  called  the  Rhine  gold, 
is  alluded  to  again  and  again  in  a  way  which  shows 
that  this  must  once  have  constituted  an  integral  portion 
of  the  story. 

Taking,  then,  the  two  essential  features  in  the  history 
of  Sigurd  to  be  his  slaying  the  worm  Fafnir  and  his  own 
death  by  treachery,  the  first  thing  we  notice  is  that  the 
hero  combines  in  himself  the  characteristics  of  two  among 
the  old  Teuton  divinities — of  those  two,  in  fact,  whose 
characters  have  received  most  from  the  epic  spirit  of  the 
Norsemen.  These  divinities  are  Thorr  and  Balder.  The 
longest  stories  which  the  Younger  Edda  tells  us  are  those 
which  relate  to  these  two  gods,  who  were,  moreover,  each 
of  them  originally  sun  gods.  The  most  important  among 
the  deeds  of  Thorr  are  his  contests  with  the  mid-earth 
serpent,  combats  which  are,  as  I  have  said,  reproduced  in 
most  of  the  mediaeval  dragon  fights  of  Europe.  The 
essential  part  of  the  myth  of  Balder  is  his  premature 
death  at  the  hand  of  his  blind  brother  Hoftr.  These  two 
elements  have  been  united  to  form  the  story  of  Sigurd 
or  Siegfried ;  and  here  the  worm  Fafnir  has  replaced 
Jormungandr,  while  in  the  place  of  H6$r  we  have  Hogni 
or  Hagen.1 

This  is  enough  to  show  us  that  Sigurd  and  Siegfried 
are  true  descendants  from  the  heroes  of  ancient  heathen 
days,  a.nd  that  the  tradition  of  the  heroic  character  had 
not  been  essentially  changed  from  one  epoch  to  another. 
Other  remnants  of  heathen  belief  are  visible  in  the  Yolsung 

1  Odhinn  has  come  to  be  confounded  with  Hoftr  in  this  later  epic  ;  for 
there  can  be  no  question  that  Hagen  is  meant  for  Odhinn.  (See  supra 
p.  391,  note.)  In  the  Volsung  epic  Odhinn  has  altogether  sunk  from  the 
high  position  which  he  holds  in  the  poems  of  the  religious  part  of  the  Edda. 
He  has  ceased  to  be  so  much  the  frieLd  of  man  and  he  has  ceased  also  to 
be  so  powerful  as  he  once  was.  See  what  is  said  in  the  next  paragraph. 


472  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

lays-  -whereof  in  former  chapters  we  have  already  noted 
the  most  conspicuous — and  in  Beowulf.  But  in  the  latest 
poem  of  the  cycle,  the  Nibelungen,  these  minor  traces 
are  not  to  be  found.  Perhaps  the  most  noticeable  thing 
in  the  poem  (and  this  applies  in  no  small  degree  to  the 
Volsung  Saga  also)  is  the  absence  of  religious  feeling 
from  it.  It  is  little  affected  by  the  beliefs  of  heathen 
Germany,  but  still  less  is  it  affected  by  the  creed  of 
Christendom.  Yet  this  very  absence  of  religious  feeling 
is  expressive  of  the  time  during  which  the  Nibelungen 
epic  sprang  into  existence.  It  belongs  precisely  to  that 
era  of  transition  when  a  great  part  of  the  German  nation 
had  left  behind  them  their  old  gods  and  had,  as  yet,  found 
no  new  divinity. 

In  the  Nibelungen  the  names  of  some  few  among  the 
actors  of  the  drama  are  historical,  as,  for  example,  Etzel, 
who  is  Attila,  and  Dietrich  of  Bern,  who  is  the  Ostrogothic 
king  Theodoric.1  These  names  are  enough  to  suggest  the 
time  at  which  the  Nibelungen  epic  had  its  birth.  And 
though  the  motive  of  the  poem  has  insensibly  shifted  from 
what  it  was  at  first,  and  has  been  presented  in  a  form  more 
intelligible  to  the  readers  of  the  thirteenth  century  than  it 
would  have  had  if  it  told  only  of  disputes  for  the  posses- 
sion of  a  treasure,  still  the  epic  has  preserved  in  a  wonder- 
ful degree  the  spirit  of  the  time  which  gave  it  birth. 

I  am  insensibly  led  to  speak  of  the  ethic  characteristics 
of  the  Nibelungen,  contrary  to  the  principle  which  I  laid 
down  anon  that  the  ethics  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  not  a 
part  of  our  concern,  because  the  spirit  and  morale  of  this 
great  poem  are  so  peculiar  and  so  typical  of  the  time  in 
which  the  Nibelungen  legend  first  sprang  up.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  that  special  period  of  transition  from  heathenism 
to  Christianity  and  from  the  total  barbarism  of  the  old 
Teutonic  life  to  the  semi-barbarism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
tone  and  in  ethic  the  poem  must  be  called  heathen,  in  that 

1  Dietrich  of  Bern  =  Theodoric  of  Verona 


THE  NIBELUNGEN.  473 

there  is  nothing  in  it  at  all  suggestive  of  Christianity. 
But  it  does  not  suggest  either  the  heathenism  of  the  old 
days.  It  belongs  only  to  that  epoch  during  which  the 
German  invaders  Tiad  abandoned  Odhinn,  for  they  had 
left  him  behind  in  their  ancestral  villages,  but  had  not  yet 
adopted  Christ.  The  picture  which  the  lay  holds  up  be- 
fore us  is  a  horrible  one,  a  tissue  of  aimless  slaughter,  a 
history  almost  altogether  foul  and  bloody,  in  which  if 
some  noble  figures  for  a  time  appear  they  are  sure  to  be 
the  first  to  perish.1  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  pic- 
ture here  drawn,  so  different  from  those  drawn  by  Tacitus 
and  from  those  presented  in  more  Christian  epics,  is  true 
for  all  time  ;  but  it  is  undoubtedly  true  for  the  exact  era 
to  which  it  refers.  The  people  were  caught  with  the  de- 
lirium of  conquest  and  by  the  fatal  enchantment  of  wealth. 
All  their  thought  was  now  concentrated  on  heaps  of  gold, 
such  as  those  for  which  their  heroes  are  described  as  fight- 
ing. This  desire  for  the  possession  of  a  hoard  of  buried 
treasure  is  the  one  motive  force  of  the  whole  drama. 
While  from  the  fiercer  Volsung  and  Nibelungen  poems 
the  cruelty  and  greed  look  out  in  all  their  native  horror, 
even  in  the  milder  Beowulf  the  importance  attaching  to  the 
gaining  of  such  a  hoard  is  shown  as  conspicuously,  though 
less  repulsively.  The  killing  of  the  dragon  was  the  crown- 
ing act  of  the  hero's  glorious  career.  All  his  adventures 
were  consummated  in  the  gaining  of  the  e  heathen  hoard,' 
and  a  heroic  life  was  thought  to  reach  its  due  ending  in 
such  a  deed.  As  Beowulf  was  dying  he  bade  his  comrade 
bring  forth  the  treasure,  to  feast  his  eyes  therewith.  Then 
he  gave  thanks. 

Ic  Sara  frsetwa  For  this  treasure  I 

Frean  ealles  ]>anc,  Thanks  to  the  Lord  of  all, 

Wuldur  cyninge,  To  the  King  of  Renown, 

Wordum  secge.  Do  now  express. 

1  Siegfried,  though  he  is  the  hero  of  the  Nibelungen,  and  is  besides 
the  only  fine  character  in  the  piece,  is  slain  in  the  sixteenth  Aventiure, 
and  the  poem  contains  thirty-nine  of  these  cantos. 


474  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

ses  Se  ic  moste  That  these  I  might 

iinum  leodum,  For  my  people, 

jEiv  swylt  deege,  Ere  my  death  day, 

Swylc  gestrynan.1  Such  acquire. 

That  this  fever  should  have  seized  upon  the  German 
races  during  the  era  of  their  first  conquests  in  Roman 
territory  will  not  seem  strange  to  us  when  we  think  of  all 
the  enchantments  which  were  woven  for  them  in  the 
lands  to  which  they  came.  Little  did  they  guess  what 
powers  lay  in  ambush  there,  powers  not  less  intoxicating 
to  the  sense,  and  not  less  deceitful  to  the  mind,  than  were 
the  spells  of  those  giants  who,  to  Teutonic  fancy,  held  all 
regions  remote  from  the  German's  native  home. 

The  enchantment  which  first  fell  upon  the  invaders 
came  from  that  wonder  of  Roman  civilisation  of  which 
they  had  before  only  heard.  The  Goths  in  Maesia,  to 
whom  the  apostle  Ulfilas  preached  in  the  fourth  century,2 
were  living  a  life  not  greatly  different  from  the  life  of 
their  Aryan  forefathers  two  thousand  years  before.  Like 
the  Aryas,  who  counted  everything  by  their  herds,  these 
Goths  had  no  wealth  but  in  their  cattle,  and  when  Ulfilas 
desired  to  translate  into  their  tongue  any  of  the  words  for 
money  in  the  New  Testament  he  could  find  no  equivalent 
but  the  Gothic  faihu,  which  means  cattle.  Yet,  before  a 
generation  had  passed  away,  the  same  Goths  had  been 
transplanted  into  the  midst  of  the  teeming  luxury  of  Italy 
and  Southern  Gaul.  All  the  stored  wealth  of  these  coun- 
tries lay  before  them  to  make  their  own.  It  is  true  that  to 
them  money,  for  the  uses  to  which  it  is  now  put,  had  little 
value ;  and  they  probably  never  understood  how  coined 
metal  could  be  made  subservient  to  the  gratification  of 
civilised  tastes  and  appetites.  They  had  no  need  of  and  no 
care  for  the  real  beauties  which  adorned  the  life  of  a  rich 
Roman  citizen — his  stately  villas,  his  statues,  his  gardens 
— but  his  more  portable  wealth  they  could  seize  upon  and 

1  Beowulf,  1.  5580  sqq.  2  Circ.  340-388. 


GEEED  OF  GOLD.  475 

cherish,  as  though  it  held  some  charm  which  might  con- 
vert their  rough  lives  into  lives  capable  of  the  enjoyments 
which  they  saw  and  envied  and  could  not  reach.  We 
know  what  kind  of  useless  use  they  did  make  of  the 
treasures  which  they  gained.  One  picture  of  their  method 
of  employing  the  precious  metals  is  given  to  us  in  the  inven- 
tory of  the  marriage  presents  which  were  brought  to  the 
Visigoth  Ataulf  when  he  espoused  the  sister  of  Honorius. 
Gibbon  l  tells  of  the  hundred  bowls  full  of  gold  and  jewels 
which  were  brought  by  the  Goths  as  a  present  to  the  bride 
Placidia ;  of  the  fifty  cups  and  sixteen  patens  of  gold ;  of 
the  immense  missorium  or  dish  of  the  same  metal,  in 
weight  500  pounds,  which  was  discovered  in  the  treasure- 
house  of  Narbonne  when  that  city  was  taken  by  the 
Franks.  But  a  better  notion  of  the  rude  use  of  treasure 
among  the  Teuton  peoples  is  given  by  the  roughly-made 
utensils — bowls,  jars,  and  platters — all  in  solid  gold,  which, 
under  the  name  of  viking  treasures,  are  preserved  in  the 
Museum  of  Copenhagen.  Such  witnesses  as  these  from 
the  historic  past  take  away  their  utterly  fabulous  character 
from  accounts  of  treasure  contained  in  the  ballad  poetry  of 
the  same  age  ;  as,  for  example,  the  description  in  Beowulf  of 
the  palace  of  Hrothgar,  King  of  the  King  Danes,  which 
was  roofed  with  pure  gold.  We  may  gather  from  these 
examples  how  the  Germans  actually  employed  the  hoards 
that  they  won ;  but  we  can  never  learn  the  full  effect 
which  the  vision  of  this  wealth  had  upon  their  imagina- 
tions. Why  the  sight  of  treasure  in  the  precious  metals 
begets  in  men  a  wolfish  craving  and  more  than  wolfish 
cruelty  it  were  hard  to  say.  It  was  so  with  the  Spaniards 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  as  with  these  Germans  of  the 
sixth.  The  whole  nation  had  now,  like  their  national 
hero,  Sigurd,  eaten  of  the  serpent's  heart — a  dreadful 
sacrament  of  cruelty  and  desire.  They  had  grown  wiser, 
but  they  had  grown  to  have,  like  Athene, '  untender  hearts.' 

1  Chap.  xxxi. 


476  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

We  shall  the  better  appreciate  this  characteristic  of 
the  Nibelungen  epics  when  we  have  been  able  to  compare 
them  with  another  cycle  of  poems  which  are  as  essentially 
Christian  as  the  Nibelungen  are  un-Christian.  To  find  a 
true  antithesis  to  the  great  epic  of  conquest  and  spoliation, 
such  an  antithesis  as  may  show  the  change  in  men's 
thoughts  and  lives  after  the  Middle  Ages  had  really 
dawned,  we  shall  have  to  pass  on  to  that  series  of  poems 
which  are  called  the  (  Chansons  de  Geste,'  the  great  Karling 
epic  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  These  poems 
are  as  completely  informed  by  the  spirit  of  mediae val 
Catholicism  as  the  Nibelungen  is  informed  by  the  spirit 
of  the  Teutonic  conquests.  But  before  we  look  at  the 
'  Chansons  de  Geste '  let  us  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  trace 
some  of  the  lower  currents  of  popular  mythology,  which 
existed  during  these  ages— from  the  time  of  the  Teutonic 
conquests  to  the  time  of  the  rise  of  the  Karling  poems. 

Epics,  it  has  been  said,  belong  to  an  age  in  which 
some  great  emotion  is  stirring  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
giving  a  unity  to  their  national  life  and  making  them 
march  together  in  a  rhythmic  motion  as  to  the  tune  of  a 
war  song.  Of  this  order  of  creations  were,  whatever  their 
faults,  the  Nibelungen-Lied  and  the  other  poems  of  that 
cycle ;  of  such  an  order  was  the  Carlo vingian  epic,  of 
which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  presently,  and 
which  arose  when  men's  thoughts  were  being  turned 
toward  the  great  contest  between  the  East  and  the  West, 
between  Mohammadanism  and  Christianity.  But  in 
quieter  times  or  in  places  remote  from  the  stir  of  excite- 
ment and  adventure  the  stream  of  popular  mythology 
keeps  almost  unchanged  its  tranquil,  languid  course. 

The  literature  of  the  kind  which  the  Nibelungen 
represents  belongs  to  the  warlike  classes.  Those  who 
first  chaunted  the  stanzas  of  the  German  epic  were  they 
who  had  been  the  votaries  of  Odhinn,  the  Wind,  who  had 
kept  the  mark  and  guarded  the  village.  They  went  forth 


FOLK  TALES.  477 

to  become  the  ruling  races  in  the  countries  which  they 
conquered.  In  these  lands  they  found  the  older  inhabit- 
ants more  civilised  than  themselves,  but  without  national 
spirit  or  national  coherence,  who  were  destined  soon  to 
sink  to  the  class  of  serfs  and  peasants.  Thus  for  awhile 
these  conquering  Germans  stood  apart,  forming  a  nation- 
ality of  their  own,  belonging  neither  to  their  native 
country,  which  they  abandoned,  nor  to  the  land  into  which 
they  came.  They  lived  still  a  life  of  camps ;  they  were 
ever  on  the  move  and  had  no  sense  of  property  nor  of^a 
settled  home.1  Therefore  the  national  epic  which  repre- 
sents their  deeds  and  thoughts  is  in  many  ways  peculiar 
and  can  scarcely  be  taken  for  an  episode  in  the  regular 
development  of  belief.  But  with  the  peaceful  brethren 
whom  they  left  behind,  and  among  the  peasant  folk  whom 
they  conquered,  the  old  creeds,  the  religion  of  the 
Germans  by  the  one  and  the  beliefs  of  the  Celts  by  the 
other,  were  cherished  more  persistently.  But  as  the 
common  people  in  both  regions  were  for  the  present 
deprived  of  their  natural  leaders  and  of  the  more  eager 
and  adventurous  minds  among  them,  their  creeds  threw 
off  the  finer  portions  of  them  and  sank  down  to  be  essen- 
tially the  beliefs  of  peasants. 

There  is  in  every  religious  system  a  popular  mythology 
which  lies  like  a  soft  alluvial  bed  all  round  the  more 
striking  elevations  of  religious  thought ;  and  which,  easily 
as  it  seems  to  take  impressions,  is  sometimes  found  to  form 
the  most  immutable  portion  of  the  creed.  The  earth- 
quakes, the  sudden  cataclasms  which  overwhelm  the 
heights,  leave  these  parts  uninjured.  They  become  most 
noticeable  when  the  striking  features  of  the  religion  have 
been  for  a  time  annihilated ;  but  they  have  pre-existed  in 
days  long  anterior  to  these  changes,  and  are  not  by  such 
revolutions  called  into  being.  We  have  seen  how,  while 

1  This  character  attaching  to  the  Merovingian  Franks  has  been  very 
well  pointed  out  by  Guizot  (Cours  da  VHistoire  de  France,  8me  lecon)  and 
after  him  by  Michelet  (Hist,  de  France,  livre  ii.) 


478  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

those  elements  of  a  creed  which  may  be  called  national 
are  always  the  grander  ones,  there  may  remain  among 
separate  fragments  of  the  people  many  beliefs  which  are 
little  removed  from  a  primitive  fetich  worship.  If  the 
nation  is  for  awhile  denationalised,  and  transformed  into 
a  congeries  of  units,  these  primitive  elements  of  belief  will 
again  come  to  the  front.  It  was  through  this  kind  of 
separation  between  the  different  elements  of  society  that 
opportunity  was  given  for  the  mythology  of  the  lower 
people  to  rise  to  the  surface,  and  to  take  its  place  as  it 
eventually  did  in  the  literary  history  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

There  are,  it  seems  to  me,  three  distinctly  traceable 
streams  of  folk  belief  which  must  be  taken  to  have  flowed 
side  by  side  with  the  more  important  epics  of  the  Middle 
Ages — side  by  side  with  the  Nibelungen  and  side  by  side 
with  the  Karling  poems.  Each  stream  bears  the  cha- 
racter of  a  mythology  sprung  up  among  a  conquered  race 
or  at  any  rate  among  the  inferior  orders  of  society. 

First  of  all,  there  was  among  the  Celts  in  England 
itself,  and  probably  in  other  lands,  a  large  body  of  ancient 
heroic  myth  which  celebrated  the  deeds  of  the  gods  or 
heroes  of  the  Celtic  creed,  and  out  of  which  the  portion 
which  has  survived  for  us  eventually  took  the  shape  of  the 
legend  of  Arthur.  This  legend  only  became  generally 
popular  toward  the  veiy  end  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Having 
for  centuries  lived  on  in  neglect,  and  passed  from  mouth 
to  mouth  among  the  peasantry,  it  suddenly  grew  into  favour 
just  at  the  time  at  which  the  more  famous  'Chansons  de 
Geste  '  were  falling  out  of  notice.  This  legend  of  Arthur 
contained  in  it  many  elements  peculiar  to  the  Celtic  mytho- 
logy, elements  of  that  mythology  which  are  also  noticeable 
in  another  popular  tradition  of  which  we  shall  presently 
speak.  In  a  former  chapter  we  saw  how  this  legend  pre- 
served the  true  Celtic  form  of  the  myth  of  the  Earthly 
Paradise.  But  the  Arthur  legend  could  not  have  been  in 
any  wide  sense  a  popular  mythology.  It  was  cherished 
by  the  Britons,  but  the  Celts  of  Continental  Europe 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  SAINTS.  479 

had  been  too  long  Romanised,  and  were  too  thoroughly 
Christian,  to  remember  the  histories  of  their  fabulous 
heroes.  Therefore  the  legend  belongs  of  right  only  to  a 
small  section  of  this  race,  and  takes  no  important  place 
in  the  mythology  of  mediaeval  Europe.1 

Much  more  truly  popular  among  the  mass  of  the  Celtic 
people— the  inhabitants  of  Gaul,  for  example,  in  the  days 
of  Merovingian  rule — must  have  been  a  parallel  series 
of  legends — those  of  the  saints.  These  were  to  some  ex- 
tent examples  of  pre-Christian  mythology,  though  clothed 
in  the  garb  of  Christianity. 

The  time  at  which  these  legends  began  to  circulate 
was  the  century  which  followed  the  epoch  of  Merovingian 
conquest;  it  was  after  the  beginning  of  the  seventh 
century  that  men  first  began  to  collect  the  legends  and 
write  them  down.  The  age  of  persecution  had  now  ceased, 
and  time  was  beginning  to  grow  its  moss  and  lichen  over 
the  memories  of  the  martyrs  of  the  preceding  age,  men 
who  had  been  dear  in  every  way  to  the  subjugated  people, 
as  fellow-countrymen  and  as  champions  of  Christianity. 
Then  there  arose  a  race  of  pious  priests,  who  went  about 
collecting  the  oral  traditions  and  graving  again,  like  Old 
Mortality  at  the  tombs  of  the  Covenanters,2  the  inscriptions 
which  had  once  been  written  in  men's  hearts,  but  were 
now  in  too  much  danger  of  becoming  effaced. 

In  morality  the  stories  of  the  saints  are  as  complete  a 
contrast  as  could  be  looked  for  to  the  morality  of  the  ruling 
races — as  that  was  portrayed  to  and  by  themselves  in 
their  epic  poems,  or  as  it  is  portrayed  to  us  by  the 
contemporary  chroniclers.  The  saint  legend  is  childish  in 
that  innocent  and  simple  fashion  which  bespeaks  the 
mythology  of  peasant  folk  in  every  age.  Where  we  are 
not  face  to  face  with  the  Christian  element  of  the  story, 

1  At  the  date  when  the  Arthur  legend  became  widely  known  the  true 
mythic  age  of  Europe  had  come  to  an  end. 

2  This  simile  is  Guizot's.     See  his  fine  essay,  Coiirs  cTHist.  Mod.—  Hut. 
de  France,  leQon  17. 


480  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

its  morality,  we  have  got  back  to  the  very  primitive  ground- 
work of  mythology,  the  folk  tale.  These  stories  must 
have  grown  up  side  by  side  with  the  fairy  legends  which 
are  so  common  in  old  France,  tales  of  the  courils,  the 
corrigans1  and  lutins  of  Brittany  and  of  the  fays  and 
dracs  of  the  South.  Such  beings  as  these  and  the  tales 
that  are  devoted  to  them  are  earlier  than  the  great 
creations  of  mythology  and  the  more  serious  parts  of 
belief;  and  they  are  also  much  longer  lived  than  these 
are. 

Perch'  una  fata  non  puo  mai  morire 

Fin  al  di  del  giudicio  universale.2 


In  days  when  the  German  races,  despite  their  pretended 
conversion,  would  have  little  to  do  with  Christianity,  and 
it  was  '  a  thing  unheard  of  for  a  Merovingian  to  become 
a  clerk,'3  Christianity  must  needs  have  been  in  every  way 
a  religion  for  the  peasantry.  Even  the  rulers  of  the 
Church  were  in  those  days  chosen  from  among  the  con- 
quered race,  from  among  such  Romans  4  as  had  gained 
influence  over  the  barbarians ;  the  lower  orders  of  the 
priesthood  and  the  monks  were  drawn  from  the  peasant 
and  the  slavish  classes.5  It  was  for  this  reason  that  the 
legends  of  the  saints  were  so  deeply  imbued  with  the 
thoughts  and  beliefs  of  rustic  life ;  the  same  kind  of  ad- 


1  The  corrigans  were  probably,  like  the  faj^s,  originally  women.     The 
name  comes  from  corny,  little,  and  grvynn,  woman,  or  else  grvemn,  genie. 
Perhaps  these  two  were  originally  the  same  word.     See  Leroux  de  Lincy, 
Introduction  au  Livre  das  Legendes.      The  presence  of  the  fairy  element 
in  the  Arthurian  legend  is  also  very  noticeable,  and  makes  a  strong  con- 
trast between  these  myths  and  those  of  the  Oarlovingian  era.     The  last 
were  much  more  German  than  Celtic. 

2  Bojardo,  Orlando  Inamorato,  ii.  26,  15. 

8  See  the  story  of  St.  Columba  and  Theodebert  II. ;  also  the  story  of 
Clotilda,  who  said  that  she  would  rather  see  her  grandchildren  dead  than 
tonsured. — Greg.  Tur.  iii. 

4  Romanised  Gauls  or  Goths. 

5  It  was  quite  otherwise  in  the  days  of  Charlemagne  ;  for  in  the  capitu- 
laries of  that  king  slaves  are  expressly  forbidden  to  become  monks ;  this 
contrast  is  typical  of  the  change  which  passed  over  Christendom  during  the 
eighth  century. 


THE  LEGEND   OF  THE  SAINTS.  481 

venture  runs  through,  the  saint  legend  and  the  popular 
tale.  The  intervention  in  one  case  is  that  of  Provi- 
dence or  of  some  saint ;  in  the  other  case  it  is  that  of 
the  little  familiar,  the  corrigan  or  fairy.  The  deeds  of 
the  two  orders  of  heroes  are  different  in  detail,  but  they 
are  the  same  in  spirit  and  intention.  In  one  set  of  stories 
the  hero  conquers  his  enemies  by  his  fairy  gifts,  and  gains 
the  princess  at  the  end ;  in  the  other  he  works  the  same 
wonders  by  his  miraculous  powers,  overcoming  all  his 
foes,  avowed  and  secret,  and  becoming  the  confidant  of 
kings.  That  he  afterwards  falls  into  trouble  and  ends  by 
suffering  martyrdom  is  the  result  due  as  much  to  a  canon 
of  fitness  external  to  the  storyteller  as  to  any  predilection 
of  his  own. 

The  third  current  was,  originally,  a  pure  stream  of 
popular  mythology.  It  was  unmixed  either  with  religion 
or  with  any  legends  of  that  higher  kind,  such  as  are  ne- 
cessary to  complete  a  religious  system.  The  stream  of 
which  I  speak  was  the  great  Beast  Epic  of  mediaeval 
Europe,  of  which  we  have  some  scattered  remnants  in  the 
histories  of  Reineke  the  Fox  and  Isengrim  the  Wolf.  Yet 
these  tales  are  doubtless  but  fragments  of  an  ancient  apo- 
logue, which  was  current  throughout  Northern  Europe. 

The  traces  of  the  Reinhart  legend  in  many  different 
lands  prove  the  wide  distribution  and  the  early  origin  of 
the  story.  Among  extant  editions  of  the  fable,  however, 
the  greater  number  belong  to  the  borderland  between 
Northern  France  and  Germany  ;  they  have  generally  come 
from  Upper  or  Lower  Flanders.  All  these  extant  forms  of 
the  Beast  Epic  are  of  too  modern  a  date  to  give  us  a  trust- 
worthy clue  to  the  nature  of  this  epic  at  the  time  at  wrhich 
it  sprang  up  among  the  peasantry  of  Northern  Europe.1 


1  Grimm  (Reinhart  Fvchs)  has  published  a  number  of  the  earliest 
extant  forms  of  the  fable  of  Reinhart  and  Isengrim.  The  first  of  these  is 
a  Latin  poem  of  688  lines,  called  Isengrimus.  It  belongs  to  the  first  half 
of  the  twelfth  century,  Of  nearly  the  same  date  are  the  Reinardus, 
another  Latin  poem  of  6,596  lines :  the  Reinhart  (Old  High  German),  of 

I  I 


482  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

It  is  difficult  to  settle  the  claim  to  its  authorship  of  the 
two  nationalities— French  and  German.  For  while,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  French  has  so  completely  adopted  the  story 
that  the  name  of  the  hero,  Eenard,  has  come  in  that  lan- 
guage to  stand  for  the  generic  name  for  fox,  to  the  total 
exclusion  of  the  older  word,  vulpe,  this  name  itself,  as  well 
as  those  of  the  other  chief  actors  in  the  story,  Isengrim 
and  Bruin,  are  apparently  words  of  German  and  not  of 
French  origin.1  That  which  we  can  distinguish  in  the 
epic  is  that  it  was  the  possession  of  the  lower  strata  of 
society.  The  hero,  Eenard,  is  the  representative  of  a  sub- 
ject race,  while  Isengrim,  the  wolf,  represents  the  con- 
querors ;  and  the  whole  history  of  the  poem  is  of  the 
wiles  by  which  Eenard  gets  the  better  of  his  stronger 
cousin. 

But  though  Eenard  represented  the  peasant  class 
wherever  the  legend  was  current,  I  am  on  the  whole  dis- 
posed to  look  upon  him  as  standing  rather  for  the  lower 
orders  of  the  German  race  than  for  the  subject  Celtic 
population.  There  is  a  close  relationship  between  Eenard 
and  Isengrim  ;  they  are  not  of  alien  blood,  though  their 
interests  are  ever  opposed.2  In  truth,  the  character  of 
Eenard  is  precisely  the  character  of  the  men  of  the 


2,266  lines  ;  and  the  Reinaert  de  Vos,  of  2,350  lines.      The  third  of  these 
four  poemg  comes  from  Alsace,  the  other  three  from  Flanders. 

The  three  great  poems  of  the  epic  cycle  are  Rcinardus  (twelfth  cen- 
tury), Roman  de  Renart  (thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century),  Reincke  Fuchs 
(end  of  fifteenth  century). 

1  '  Noble '  (the  Lion)  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  distinctly  French  gloss. 
Otherwise   the  name  would  have  been  Adel.     But,  as  Grimm  says,  the 
Bear  probably  originally  performed  the  office  of  king  (Reinkart  Fucks, 
Introd.  xlvii.  liii.)     This  office  was,  in  course  of  time,  transferred  to  the 
Lion. 

The  essential  characters  of  the  drama  are,  says  Grimm,  the  conqueror, 
the  conquered,  and  the  judge — Wolf,  Fox,  and  Bear  or  Lion.  For  'con- 
queror' and  'conquered'  we  may  perhaps  substitute  'ruling  '  and  'subject ' 
races. 

2  Throughout  the  poems  they  constantly  call  each  other  cousin,  or  uncle 
and  nephew.     The  nearness  of  kinship  between  the  fox  and  the  wolf  in 
popular  belief  is  well  shown  by  the  etymology  of  the  names  for  them,  wolf 
being  etymologically  allied  to  vulpes. 


EEINEKE  FUCHS.  483 

country  to  which  '  Reinhart  Fuchs  '  seeins  especially  to 
belong,  the  inhabitants  of  the  almost  independent  but 
yet  physically  weak  trading  cities  of  Flanders.  These 
men  were  still  essentially  German,  but  their  sympathies 
were  not  with  German  conquerors,  with  the  nobility  of 
France  or  Germany,  but  with  the  peasant  class.1 

The  Thorr  of  Scandinavian  or  the  Doriar  of  Teuton 
belief  became  in  time  the  patron  god  of  the  peasantry, 
and  instead  of  being  a  warrior  he  grew  to  be  a  promoter 
of  agriculture,  and  of  that  kind  of  war  only  which  agri- 
culture wages  against  the  rude  waste  tracts  of  a  country.2 
As  Odhinn  (Wuotan)  remained  the  warlike  god,  and  so  the 
god  of  the  ruling  classes,  there  would  naturally  grow  up 
some  rivalry  between  the  two  chief  Teuton  divinities.  A 
trace  of  this  enmity  is  shown  in  one  of  the  Eddaic  poems, 
the  *  HarbarSsljoft,'  at  least  in  the  latest  acceptation  of  its 
intention ;  for  though  HarbarS  began  by  being  a  giant, 
there  can  be  no  question  that  he  was  eventually  confounded 
with  Odhinn.  Without  meaning  it  to  be  supposed  that 
the  original  story  of  the  *  Reineke  Fuchs '  was  in  any  way 
founded  upon  the  myth  system  of  Asgard  and  the  Teuton 
divinities,  I  can  imagine  that  in  its  actual  shape  it  does 
bear  some  traces  of  this  mythology  as  it  appeared  during 
its  latter  years.  It  may  well  be  that  the  red  Reineke  has 
inherited  something  from  the  red  Thorr  and  the  grey 
Isengrim,  something  from  the  grey  Odhinn.3  In  Iceland 
the  fox  is  still  sometimes  called  holtaporr  (wood-Thorr),4 
Odhinn  was  generally  the  grey-headed  and  grey-bearded 

1  It  is  only  in  the  later  forms  of  the  Reineke  legend  that  the  hero  is 
converted  into  a  knight  possessing  a  castle  Malepertus. 

2  See  Simrock,  Handbuch  passim,  and  Uhland,  Der  Mythus  von  TJtor. 

3  Thorr,  as  the  Thunderer,  was  always  the  red  God.     He  was  imagined 
to  have  a  red  beard  (Forn.  Sog.  ii.  182,  x.  329).    Odhinn  is  sometimes  a  red 
god,  though  more  generally  a  grey.     Reinhart  is  constantly  addressed  as 
the  '  red,'  as  is  indeed  natural.     See  Keinardus,  284,  1463  ;  Reinaert,  4394  ; 
Horn,   de  Renart,  463,    502,  4557,    6088,    6674,  6689,  8251,  8815,    9683. 
Isengrim  is  almost  as  often  styled  the  '  grey,'  canus,  canu,  &c.« 

4  Grimm,  D.  M.  i.  148. 

i  i  2 


484  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

god ;  and  the  wolf  was  especially  sacred  to  him.  Where- 
fore Isengrim  would  be  an  appropriate  representative  of 
Odhinn.  And  it  is  very  probable  that  beside  the  element 
of  primitive  belief  in  this  Beast  Epic,  a  species  of  mytho- 
logy which  is  probably  earlier  than  the  construction  of  any 
Asgard  or  ordered  pantheon  of  gods,  and  which  may  have 
belonged  as  much  to  Celts  as  to  Germans,  there  is  like- 
wise some  reminiscence  of  the  peculiar  religious  system 
of  the  Teutonic  people. 

Such  fragments  of  pristine  belief  as  these  which  we 
have  enumerated  I  place  about  the  period  during  which 
the  German  conquerors  were  settling  into  their  new 
homes,  and  Europe  was  entering  upon  its  mediaeval  life. 
I  do  this  not  because  this  kind  of  popular  belief  does  in 
itself  belong  to  any  peculiar  age,  but  because  it  is 
especially  in  times  of  transition,  and  we  may  say  of 
denationalisation,  that  primitive  myths  take  an  important 
place  in  the  world's  creed.  It  is  only  under  such  cir- 
cumstances that  they  rise  to  the  surface  and  assume  some- 
thing of  the  dignity  of  national  epics. 

But  the  German  race  was  not  destined  to  remain  for 
ever  so  little  like  a  nation,  so  much  like  a  house  divided 
against  itself,  as  it  was  during  the  age  which  immediately 
succeeded  its  conquests  of  Eoman  territory,  during  the 
rule  of  the  Merovingian  kings  in  France,  of  the  Lombards 
in  Italy,  during  the  days  of  the  Suevi  and  Visigoths  in 
Spain  and  of  our  Heptarchy  in  England.  A  new  influence 
of  German  thought  began  to  make  itself  felt  when  the 
Karling  dynasty  supplanted  the  Merovingian  dynasty  in 
France,  and  when  through  the  strength  of  the  eastern 
Franks  that  d}7nasty  became  in  the  person  of  Charles  the 
supreme  ruler  in  Europe. 

Though  a  thousand  unrecorded  Christmas  Days  have 
passed  away  since  then,  history  will  not  soon  lose  sight  of 
that  Christmas  Day  of  the  }rear  800,  when,  as  Charlemagne 
was  kneeling  before  the  altar  of  St.  Peter's  in  Rome, 


THE  'CHANSONS  DE  GESTE.'  485 

Leo  III.  (so  Eginhard  tells  the  story1)  came  behind  him 
unperceived,  and  placing  a  diadem  upon  his  head  cried 
out,  '  Hail  to  Charles  the  Augustus,  the  great  and  peace- 
ful Emperor  of  the  Romans  ! '  The  vision  which  floated 
before  the  minds  of  the  statesmen  of  those  days  was  the 
revival  of  the  old  effete  Western  Empire  under  better 
conditions,  with  a  strong  orthodox  Emperor  at  its  head, 
and  of  a  renewal  with  all  its  ancient  glories  of  the  Roman 
civilisation.  But  it  was  not  this  that  the  ceremony  of 
that  Christmas  Day  did  really  solemnise.  The  Roman 
nation  was  not  galvanised  into  new  life  ;  in  place  thereof 
the  power  of  the  barbarians  was  established  and  the  era 
of  their  influence  on  European  history  was  inaugurated. 
In  the  person  of  their  king  the  crown  was  placed  upon  the 
head  of  the  Germans. 

Now  for  the  first  time  for  many  hundred  years  some 
order  and  fixed  law  began  to  appear  in  the  governance  of 
society;  for  now  all  the  nations,  save  those  in  the  far 
North  and  in  the  East,  had  been  converted  to  Christianity. 
Now,  too,  all  the  conquests  of  the  Germans  over  the 
Romans  and  Celts  had  come  to  an  end.2  No  longer  a 
thought  remained  of  migration  or  of  further  change. 
The  life  of  camps  was  abandoned,  and  that  complete 
settlement  of  the  Germans  in  their  new  lands  took  place 
which  directly  led  to  the  institution  of  feudalism,  and 
hence  to  the  petrified,  unvarying  life  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  literature  which  speaks  most  eloquently  of  the 
beliefs  and  feelings  of  the  age  which  followed  this  establish- 
ment of  the  Carlovingian  dynasty  is  that  immense  cycle 
of  epic  poems  which  has  gathered  round  the  name  of  the 
great  emperor,  and  which  is  hence  called  the  Karling  epic. 
But  the  name  by  which  they  were  distinguished  in  their 
own  day  was  '  Chansons  de  Geste.'  The  stories  which  are 
told  in  these  songs,  almost  without  exception,  revolve 
round  the  traditional  figure  of  Charlemagne.  But  this 

1   Vita  Ear.  Magni,  100 ;  Annal.  215. 

8  Save  in  the  far  West— Wales,  Ireland,  Scotland. 


486  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

Charlemagne  is  not  the  historical  king  of  the  Franks ;  he  is 
the  mythic  being  which  a  couple  of  centuries  of  legendary 
hero  worship  have  made  him.  The  motive  of  the  poems — 
the  spirit,  that  is  to  say,  which  moves  and  animates  them — 
is  the  spirit  of  the  crusader,  for  they  arose  at  the  beginning 
of  the  great  contest  between  the  East  and  the  West ;  they 
faded  away  when  the  enthusiasm  of  the  crusades  died 
down.  In  these  poems  Charlemagne  is  transformed  into 
the  ideal  crusader.  His  deeds  of  arms  are  wrought  for  the 
discomfiture  of  the  Saracen,  and  nearly  all  the  actions  of 
the  other  heroes  of  the  songs  have  the  same  intent. 

Though  Christian  in  tone,  the  'Chansons '  are  not  Celtic; 
on  the  contrary,  they  are  essentially  Germanic.  They  are 
Teutonic  in  the  spirit  that  animates  them,  in  the  tramp 
of  battle  to  which  they  seem  to  keep  time,  in  the  forms  of 
love  and  hate  which  they  chronicle;  they  are  Teutonic 
even  in  lesser  details,  as  in  the  actual  method  of  fighting 
which  they  describe  and  the  mode  of  arranging  an  army, 
or  in  the  system  of  administering  justice.1  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the '  Chansons  de  Geste '  are,  not  less  than  the 
Nibelungen,  the  offspring  of  the  chaunts  by  which  from 
time  immemorial  the  German  line  of  battle  used  to  go 
encouraged  into  action,  and  in  which,  when  the  battle 
was  over,  the  soldiers  used  to  find  their  voice  again  by  the 
fireside.  Tradition,  therefore,  was  never  quite  broken 
through  between  the  days  of  the  old  heathen  war  songs 
and  those  of  the  birth  of  the  newer  Christian  epic.  And  it 
could  hardly  be  but  that  many  of  the  legends  of  heathenism 
were  handed  on  from  one  era  to  the  other. 

True  the  religion  of  the  people  had  been  utterly 
changed  between  the  two  epochs;  and,  so  far  as  regards 
either  the  formal  belief  or  the  morality  of  the  '  Chansons,' 
these  afford  as  great  a  contrast  as  could  be  imagined  to 
the  thoughts  of  heathenism  upon  the  same  subjects.  The 
Qhristian  theory  of  morals,  in  the  form  in  which  that  was 

I8ee  Leon  Gautier,  Epopee  franqaise,  vol.  i.  p.  28. 


THE  MYTHIC  CHARLEMAGNE.  487 

understood  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  shines 
brightly  in  these  poems,  and  at  once  divides  them  by  an 
impassable  gulf  from  the  poems  of  the  Nibelungen  cycle. 
But  as  regards  the  outer  region  of  belief,  that  part  which 
does  not  touch  closely  upon  morality,  and  does  not  come 
in  contact  with  the  Biblical  teaching  concerning  this 
world  or  the  next,  the  barrier  between  the  Christian  epic 
and  the  older  literature  of  heathen  times  is  far  less 
conspicuous.  It  was  to  a  great  extent  upon  the  pattern 
of  Odhinn,  of  Thorr,  or  of  other  gods  and  heroes  of  Asgard 
and  Walhalla  that  the  legendary  characters  of  Charle- 
magne and  his  paladins  were  formed. 

The  emperor  himself  is  in  many  ways  the  counterpart 
of  Odhinri  (Wuotan),  and  seems  to  perform  the  same 
duties  in  the  midst  of  his  twelve  peers  which  Odhinn 
exercised  among  the  twelve  gods  of  Asgard.  The  part 
which  Odhinn  played  in  Valholl  the  same  part  did 
Charles  play  at  Aix.  The  former  was,  as  we  saw, 
essentially  the  counsellor  and  the  wise  one  among  the 
gods.  Though  he  was  a  god  of  battle  and  mighty  in  the 
combat,  he  was  less  distinctively  a  fighter  than  a  deliberator. 
Thorr  and  Tyr  could  do  battle  as  well  as  he ;  but  none 
possessed  the  wisdom  of  Odhinn.  Now  this  is  just  the 
character  which  attaches  to  Charles.  Roland  or  Oliver 
can  do  the  fighting,  but  Charles  is  always  the  one  who 
takes  and  gives  counsel,  who  settles  upon  the  occasion  and 
the  place  of  war.  In  the  f  Chanson  de  Roland '  there  is  a 
fine  picture  of  Charles  seated  to  receive  the  ambassadors 
from  a  certain  Saracen  king.  We  see  him  on  a  golden 
throne,  with  hair  and  long  beard  all  white — 

Blanche  ad  la  barbe  e  tut  flurit  le  chief — 

with  head  bent  down,  eyes  cast  upon  the  ground,  long 
pondering  before  he  gave  his  answer;  'for,'  says  the 
poet,  '  Charles  never  spake  in  haste.' 

IV  ^reover  the  likeness  between  Odhinn  and  Charles 
appt  r?  peculiarly  strong  in  one  respect,  viz.  in  the 


488  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

aspect  of  great  age  which  each  wears.  It  is  as  strange  to 
endow  a  chief  god  as  to  endow  a  popular  hero  with  the 
appearance  of  eld.  Although  the  former  might  be  sup- 
posed to  have  existed  through  all  time,  one  could  not 
have  expected  that  men  would  have  fancied  him  bearing 
011  his  person  any  impress  of  the  flight  of  years ;  and  one 
would  have  expected  it  least  of  all  with  a  people  who  set 
so  much  value  upon  physical  strength  as  did  the  Germans. 
Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  wherever  Odhinn  makes  his  appear- 
ance in  later  German  tradition  it  is  as  a  quite  old,  grey- 
headed, grey-bearded  man.  He  is,  in  the  language  of  Mr. 
Morris's  '  Sigurd  the  Volsung,'  'one-eyed,  and  seeming 
ancient.'  I  do  not  know  whether  this  had  always  been 
the  conception  of  Odhinn,  but  it  certainly  was  the  image  of 
him  which  existed  in  the  latter  days  of  paganism.  And 
now  in  the  dawning  of  the  Christian  epic  we  see  the  same 
conception  embodied  in  Charles.  There  are  some ( Chansons ' 
which  tell  of  Charlemagne's  boyhood  and  early  youth, 
though  these  are  not  among  the  earliest  of  the  collection. 
In  any  case  the  minute  this  early  youth  is  passed  Charle- 
magne seems  to  have  become  suddenly  a  very  old  man. 
There  is  no  intermediate  stage  between  twenty  and  sixty 
or  more.  Charlemagne  is  nearly  always  called,  as  in  the 
passage  just  quoted,  him  'of  the  white  beard.'  In  the 
'Chanson  de  Koland,'  the  oldest  and  the  most  truly  epic  of 
all  the  collection,  Charlemagne  is  made  to  be  two  hundred 
years  old  and  more — mien  escient  douz  cenz  anz  ad  passet. 

Again,  Charles  has  still  somewhat  the  character  of  the 
tempest  god ;  he  seems  to  wield,  like  Odhinn,  the  powers 
of  the  storm,  and  the  thunder  like  Zeus  or  Thorr ;  the 
glance  of  his  eyes  can  strike  men  to  the  ground  as  if  they 
had  been  struck  by  the  bolt.  Odhinn  had  for  ever  flying 
round  his  head  two  ravens,  Hugin  and  Munin  (Thought 
and  Memory),  who  were  his  counsellors.  In  place  of  these 
Charles  has  two  heavenly  guides — namely,  two  angels — 
who  never  leave  him. 

Another  thing  which  draws   close  the  link   between 


THE  MYTHIC   CHARLEMAGNE.  489 

the  god  and  the  epic  hero  is  that  in  popular  German  tra- 
dition Charles  the  Great  is  made  to  lie  asleep  beneath  a 
mountain,  where,  without  question,  Odhinii  had  once  slept 
before.1  In  other  traditions  a  still  later  national  hero, 
Frederick  Eedbeard  (Barbarossa),  takes  the  place  of  the 
god.  He  sleeps  at  Kaiserlautern  or  at  Kiffhauser.  Every- 
one knows  the  story  of  the  shepherd  youth  who,  by  an 
underground  passage,  found  his  way  into  the  midst  of  the 
hill,  and  there  saw  Frederick  with  his  head  upon  a  table, 
through  which  the  beard  of  the  king  had  grown,  Frederick 
awoke  at  the  sound  of  the  strange  footsteps,  and  demanded 
of  the  shepherd,  '  Are  the  ravens  still  flying  round  the 
hill  ?  '  '  Yes,'  he  answered.  '  Then  must  I  sleep  another 
hundred  years.'  In  this  tale  the  birds  of  Odhinn  still 
linger  to  mark  the  place  where  he  sleeps  and  the  true 
individuality  of  the  sleeper. 

The  Valkyriur  too  are  not  wanting  from  the  legend  of 
Charlemagne,  for  they  are  represented  by  the  daughters 
of  the  emperor.  These  women  are  ever  described  as  vira- 
goes. They  were  said  to  ride  with  their  father  to  battle ; 
one  of  them,  Emma,  actually  carried  off  by  force  a  hesi- 
tating lover.2 

One  antique  Teuton  goddess,  reappearing  in  these 
tales,  does  so  while  keeping  her  proper  name.  This  is 
Berchta  (Perchta),  whom  in  a  former  chapter  we  spoke  of 
as  the  counterpart  in  Germany  proper  of  the  Norse  god- 
dess Frigg,  the  wife  of  Odhinn.  Berchta  seems,  in  fact, 
to  have  been  one  of  the  names  of  this  consort  of  Wuotan, 
and  the  goddess  herself  to  have  been  a  sort  of  Queen  of 
Heaven.3  The  same  name  recurs  continually  in  the 
*  Chansons  de  Geste.'  There  is  Berte  aus  grans  pies  (Bertha 
Broadfoot),  the  mother  of  Charles;  and  another  Bertha, 


*  In  one  instance,  at  all  events,  the  mountain  is  called  Wodansberg. 

2  Grimm,  Deutsche  Sag  en,  ii.  115,  &c. 

3  See  Grimm,  D.  M.  i.  226  sqq. ;  Simrock,  Handb.  der  deut.  Myth.  293 
357,  364,  409,   548;   also  Wuttke,  Deutscli.  Volksab.  ch.  i. ;  Kuhn,  S.   G. 
M.  &c.     Berchta  is  something  of  an  earth  goddess,  as  is  Frigg. 


490  OUTLINES  OP  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  sister  of  Charles  and  the  mother  of  Roland.  The  first 
of  these  two  partook  of  the  Yalkyria  nature.  The  name 
of  Broadfoot  came  to  her  from  her  having  one  foot  webbed 
like  the  foot  of  a  swan.  This  was  all  that  remained  of  the 
power  which  once  belonged  to  the  Valkyriur  of  changing 
themselves  into  birds.  To  such  mean  dimensions  had 
shrunk  the  beautiful  myth  of  Odhinn's  swan  maidens. 

As  Charles  was  the  due  representative  of  Allfather 
Odhinn,  so  was  Roland,  the  great  hero  of  this  epic,  a 
representative  of  his  son  Thorr.  We  may  perhaps  say 
that,  like  Siegfried  of  the  Nibelungen,  he  combines  in 
himself  traits  taken  from  the  two  principal  divinities  of 
the  second  generation  among  the  j3Esir.  He,  quite  con- 
trariwise to  his  uncle,  is  always  young.  He  is  evidently 
meant  to  be  in  the  glow  of  youth  at  the  very  day  of  his 
death. 

Amis  Rollanz,  prozdom,  juvente  bele  !  l 

exclaimed  Charles  in  his  lament  over  him  after  Ron- 
cesvaux.  Roland  was  at  the  end  still  unmarried,  though 
affianced  to  the  lovely  Aude.  Yet  he  was  own  nephew  to 
Charlemagne,  who  at  the  same  time  was  two  hundred 
years  old. 

Roland  was  the  bearer  of  the  great  horn  or  olifant  of 
Charlemagne's  army.  At  Roncesvalles,  when  the  rear- 
guard of  the  French  under  Roland  had  been  surprised  and 
nearly  cut  to  pieces  by  the  army  of  the  Saracen,  Roland 
put  the  horn  to  his  lips  and  blew  a  blast,  in  the  hope  of 
recalling  the  main  body  of  the  army.  He  blew  with  such 
force  that  the  sound  was  heard  thirty  leagues  away,  and 
reached  the  ears  of  Charles  and  of  his  army,  who  had 
already  returned  to  France.  All  the  host  of  Charles  stood 
listening,  and  three  times  this  distant  echo  came  to  their 
ears.  ( That  horn  had  a  long  breath,'  said  the  king.  But  ere 
the  main  body  of  the  French  could  get  back  to  the  battle 
field  the  rear-guard  had  almost  all  been  slain,  and  Roland 

1  Ami  Roland,  vaillant  homme,  belle  jeunesse  1 


EOLAND.  491 

himself  was  wounded  to  death.  Then  he  sounded  the  olifant 
once  more — this  time,  alas  !  but  faintly — and  when  Charles 
heard  it,  in  sorrow  he  turned  to  his  barons  and  said,  ( It 
is  going  ill.  We  shall  lose  my  nephew  Roland.  I  know 
by  the  sound  of  his  horn  that  he  hath  not  long  to  live.' 
This  description  is  very  suggestive  of  the  thunder,  first 
loud  and  presently  spent  and  faintly  rumbling.  It  should 
be  remembered  that,  at  the  very  time  when  this  horn  of 
Roland  reached  the  ears  of  Charlemagne  from  far  away, 
a  tempest  of  thunder  and  lightning  was  raging  over 
France.  Roland  may  well  have  inherited  his  olifant  from 
Thorr. 

The  history  of  Roncesvalles  ma-y  have  about  it  some 
lingering  echoes  of  the  prophecy  of  Ragnarok.  We  know 
that  one  of  the  tokens  of  the  coining  of  the  giants  was  to 
be  the  sound  of  the  Gjallar-horn,  blown  by  the  god  Heimdal, 
he  who  had  been  posted  to  hold  the  bridge  Bifrost  against 
the  coming  of  Surtr.  When  the  overwhelming  host  of 
the  fire  king  comes  upon  him  Heimdal  is  to  sound  that 
Gjallar-horn.  Now  this  horn  is  undoubtedly  the  thunder. 
The  peal  belongs  both  to  Heimdal  and  to  Thorr ;  therefore 
the  olifant  of  Roland  may  be  the  thunder  too. 

Literature  of  the  kind  represented  by  the  Carlovingian 
epic's  belonged  chiefly  to  the  upper  classes.  These  songs 
were  sung  by  wandering  minstrels  not  so  often  in  the 
market-place  as  in  the  castle  hall  or  bower.  Half  the 
barons  of  France  traced  descent  in  one  way  or  another 
from  the  paladins,  much  as  the  petty  Ionian  kings  to 
whom  Homer  sang  deemed  themselves  the  representatives 
of  the  chieftains  who  had  joined  in  the  conquest  of  Troy. 
The  earlier  songs  from  which  the  {  Chansons  de  Geste ' 
were  a  compilation  were  probably  of  a  more  popular 
character,  but  they  are  lost  to  us. 

While  these  stories  were  being  repeated  in  the  lord's 
castle  what  sort  of  tales  were  passing  current  in  the  farm- 
house and  the  village,  among  vassals  and  serfs  ?  what 


492  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

kind  especially  in  those  German  lands  where  Wuotan  and 
Donar  had  once  swayed  the  popular  creed  ? 

There  is  in  Germany  a  certain  range  of  highlands 
which,  standing  upon  Switzerland  as  upon  a  base,  stretches 
up  diagonally  by  the  Black  Forest  and  the  Palatinate  to 
the  Harz  and  Saxon  Switzerland.  It  corresponds  to  that 
other  series  of  elevations  in  eastern  France  or  in  Alsace 
and  Lorraine  from  the  Vosges  to  the  Ardennes.  Between 
these  ranges  the  broad  Rhine  wanders  through  fruitful 
plains  down  to  the  Northern  Sea.  The  hills  are  two 
opposing  camps  :  the  plain  is  the  battle  ground  between 
them.  Here  has  often  been  fought  out  the  issue  between 
different  nationalities  and  different  creeds.  The  eastern- 
most of  these  two  camps  was  once  the  stronghold  of 
German  heathenism  ;  it  is  now  the  favourite  home  of 
popular  lore.  From  this  eastern  range  the  Saxon  or  the 
Thuringian  once  looked  out  upon  his  great  river — his  free 
German  Rhine  and  national  god — and  he  saw  it  gradually 
passing  over  to  the  new  faith.  Cathedrals  were  rising  all 
along  its  banks :  the  great  archbishoprics  founded  by 
Charles  at  Cologne  and  Mainz  and  Worms — Mainz,  the 
see  of  St.  Boniface;  Cologne,  the  most  sacred  and  most 
influential  of  the  Middle  Age  towns  of  Germany;1 — and 
then  beyond  the  Rhine,  like  the  outposts  of  the  advancing 
army  of  Christendom,  he  saw  other  foundations  spring  up ; 
first  among  these  the  seven  lesser  sees  established  by 
Charlemagne — Osnabriick,  Minden,  Paderborn,  Werden, 
Halberstadt,  and  Hildersheim,  and  the  famous  abbey  of 
Fulda.  As  he  beheld  these  churches  rise,  the  heathen 
German  fled  and  hid  himself  in  his  mountain  fastnesses. 
How  long  his  creed  lingered  there  we  cannot  say,  but  when 
it  had  finally  departed  it  left  the  recollection  of  its  presence 
in  the  popular  tradition. 

The  transformations  which  the  German  deities  under- 
went when  the  people  became  Christianised  took  place 

1  The  laws  of  the  hanse  were  founded  by  the  merchants  of  Cologne  who 
were  resident  in  foreign  lands. 


GEEMAN  FOLK  LOKE.  .  493 

more  recently  here  than  elsewhere,  and  therefore  the  re- 
collection of  the  old  gods  is  the  clearer.  It  is  here  that 
we  must  enquire  if  we  wish  to  discover  what  became  of 
Wuotan  and  Donar,  Freka  and  Holda.  It  is  not  in  this 
case  as  it  is  with  the  folk  tales  of  the  type  of  the  '  Reineke 
Fuchs,'  or  even  with  that  popular  mythology  which  peeps 
from  behind  the  legends  of  the  saints.  Both  these  kinds  of 
popular  lore  are  chiefly  of  the  universal  folk-tale  type,  and 
the  beings  which  they  introduce  are  such  as  would  find 
their  counterparts  in  any  land ;  as  likely  in  the  popular 
tales  of  the  Arabs  or  the  Persians  as  in  those  of  Europe. 
A  great  proportion  of  the  German  folk  tales  are  also  of 
this  universal  character ;  but  there  is  another  series  which 
contains  certain  tokens  of  the  special  German  belief,  and 
which  has  much  to  tell  us  of  the  lingering  effects  of  that 
belief  upon  popular  fancy. 

First  to  notice  is  the  legend  of  Hackelbarend,  or 
Hackelberg,  or  Herod,  as  he  is  variously  called,  the  Wild 
Huntsman,  who  is  known  to  us  in  England  as  Herne  the 
Hunter.  He  is  found  all  over  North  Germany  and  in 
Denmark ;  he  is  well  known  in  the  Jura,  and  in  the 
Vosges,  and  in  Switzerland;  better  known  still  in  the 
Harz.  Hackelberg,  the  legend  saith,  was  a  wicked  noble 
who  was  wont  to  hunt  upon  Sundays  as  upon  week  days, 
without  distinction.  One  particular  Easter  Sunday  he 
had  not  only  gone  hunting  himself,  but  had  forced  all  his 
peasantry  to  take  a  part  in  beating  up  the  game.  Presently 
he  was  met  by  two  horsemen  :  one  was  mild  of  aspect  and 
rode  a  white  horse ;  the  other  was  grim  and  fierce,  seated 
upon  a  coal-black  steed,  which  from  its  mouth  and  nostrils 
seemed  to  breathe  fire.  The  one  sought  to  dissuade  him 
from  his  enterprise,  the  other  urged  him  on ;  but  Hackel- 
berg turned  from  his  good  angel  and  continued  his  wild 
chase.  So  now,  in  company  with  the  fiend,  he  hunts,  and 
will  hunt  to  the  Judgment  Day.  Men  call  him  Hel-j tiger,1 

1  In  Ix>w  German  also  Dammjager  (Kuhn,  Sagen,  Sec.  ii.  No.  9), 
Bodenjiiger  (  =  Woden  jager),  Buddejager,  Woenjager,  Ewiger  Jagex,  &c. 
(id.  ii.  24-28). 


494  ,     OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

hunter  of  hell.  According  to  one  tradition  he  seduced  a 
nun,  and  she  now  rides  bj  his  side :  some  say  she  is 
transformed  into  the  white  owl  Totosel;  others  call  her 
Ursula l — a  significant  name. 

Woe  to  the  peasant  who  hears  the  wild  chase  sweeping 
towards  him  through  some  lonely  mountain  pass,  and  amid 
the  din  the  cry  of  the  Hel-jager,  'Hoto!  hutu!'  The 
barking  of  dogs  may  be  distinguished  from  mid  air,  and 
yet  nothing  seen;  or  a  rain  of  bloody  drops  may  come 
down  from  above  with  a  limb  of  one  of  the  victims.  One 
peasant  boldly  jeered  at  the  Huntsman  as  he  went  by,  and 
Hackelberg  threw  him  down  the  arm  of  a  man ;  '  for  the 
Wild  Huntsman,'  says  this  legend,  c  hunts  only  men.' 2 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  awful  apparition  is 
Odhinn  himself  transformed.  Hakelbarend  seems  to  have 
been  the  earliest  name  of  the  Huntsman ;  it  means  simply 
cloak-bearer,  and  we  know  how  constantly  Odhinn  is 
represented  travelling  abroad  clad  in  a-  long  blue  cloak, 
which  is  in  fact  the  air  or  the  cloud.3  She  who  rides  with 
the  Wild  Huntsman  is  the  German  goddess  Horsel  (hence 
called  Ursula),  probably  the  same  as  Freyja,4  and  more 
remotely  the  same  as  Frigg.  Odhinn  and  Freyja  rode 
together  to  the  field  of  battle  to  share  in  the  division  of 
the  slain ;  in  other  words,  they  were  the  two  psychopomps, 
or  leaders  of  ghosts  to  the  nether  kingdom.  Hackelberg 
performed  a  similar  office  ;  he  was  a  hunter  of  men. 

Hackelberg  is,  again,  connected  with  some  of  the  notions 
concerning  the  other  world  which  in  a  former  chapter  we 
traced  in  Yedic  mythology.  We  saw  that  in  the  Vedas 
the  Milky  Way  was  fancied  to  be  the  Bridge  of  Souls. 

1  Kuhn,  ii.  p.  10. 

2  Kuhn,  ii.  No.  21. 

8  Though  of  course  the  names  given  above  render  such  testimony  un- 
necessary. 

4  Horsel,  who  seems  sometimes  to  have  represented  the  moon  (hence 
Ursula  and  her  ten  thousand  virgins,  the  stars),  was  also  a  goddess  of  love, 
as  Freyja  was.  Thus  in  the  various  versions  of  the  Tannhiiuser  legend  we 
ha\e  sometimes  a  Horselberg,  sometimes  a  Venusberg,  beneath  which  the 
enchantress  is  supposed  to  dwell. 


THE  WILD  HUNTSMAN.  495 

Now  Hackelberg  is  said  to  hunt  all  the  year  round  along 
the  Milky  Way,  save  during  the  twelve  nights1 — those 
which  intervene  between  Christmas  and  Twelfth  Night — 
during  this  period  he  hunts  on  earth.  He  is  accompanied 
by  two  dogs,  who  must  be  identical  with  the  Sarameyas, 
the  dogs  of  Yama.2  All  doors  and  windows  should  be  kept 
shut  when  Hackelberg  goes  by ;  for  if  they  are  not,  one 
of  the  dog  fiends  will  rush  into  the  house  and  will  lie  down 
on  the  hearth,  whence  no  power  will  be  able  to  make  him 
move.  There  he  will  stay  for  a  year,  and  during  all  that 
time  there  will  be  trouble  in  the  house;  but  when  the 
hunt  comes  round  again  he  will  rush  wildly  forth  and 
join  it. 

Let  us  compare  with  this  universal  legend  of  Hackel- 
berg another  one  which  we  find  in  Kuhn's  collection.3 
Between  the  inhabitants  of  Epe  and  those  of  Engter  there 
had  existed  for  many  years  a  dispute  concerning  their 
common  boundary,  or  mark.  Then  came  a  man  from  Epe 
and  swore  that  the  boundary  was  so  and  so.  But  the 
oath  was  a  false  one;  wherefore  to  this  day  that  man 
forsworn  comes  at  dusk  to  the  boundary  stone  and  sits  upon 
it,  crying  f  Hoho  !  hoho ! '  and  this  he  must  do  for  ever. 
He  is  called  Stretmann  (Streitmann,  man  of  war?)  This 
being  is  also,  I  suppose,  the  transformed  Odhinn,  who  was 
once,  we  know,  the  arbiter  of  the  mark,  inasmuch  as  he 
was  the  impersonation  of  the  storm.4  The  punishment 
here  recorded  was  inflicted  on  him  when  he  was  dismissed 
from  Asgard  to  hell,  and  from  a  god  was  changed  into  a 
fiend.  Afterwards  the  crime  was  invented  to  account  for 
the  punishment.  The  same  course  was,  no  doubt,  followed 
in  the  case  of  the  Wild  Huntsman,  as  well  as  in  that  more 
modern  counterpart  of  him  (evidently  also  a  being  of  the 

1  On  some  of  the  beliefs  concerning  the  '  twelve  days '  see  Chap.  VII. 
end. 

a  The  '  wish  hounds '  that  are  heard  in  some  parts  of  England  are  clearly 
these  same  dogs.  'Wish'  is  one  of  the  names  of  Odhinn. — Grimm,  2).  M 

3  No.  34,  p.  40.     The  story  was  orally  communicated  to  Kuhn. 

«  See  Chap.  VII. 


496  OUTLINES   OF  PKBIITIVE  BELIEF. 

storm)  Van  der  Dekken  (the  Man  of  the  Cloak1),  the  Flying 
Dutchman.  Herod,  Hackelberg,  Herne,  Van  der  Dekken, 
Stretmann — these  are  all  the  counterparts  of  the  great 
German  god. 

Two  other  stories  must  also  be  noticed.  One  is  the 
'  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,'  which  a  great  contemporary  poet 
has  rewritten  with  so  much  beauty,  and  has  at  the  same 
time  made  so  familiar  to  us,  that  the  details  need  not  be 
repeated  here.  The  rats  are  symbolical  of  human  souls. 
The  Piper  is  the  wind — that  is,  Odhinn — and  the  wind, 
again,  in  its  character  as  the  soul  leader,  like  Hermes  Psy- 
ch opompos.  The  Piper's  lute  is  the  same  as  the  lyre  of 
Hermes  ;  both  have  a  music  which  none  can  disobey,  for 
it  is  the  whisper  of  death.  First  the  Piper  piped  away 
the  rats  from  the  houses  ;  but  the  townsfolk,  freed  from 
their  burden,  refused  him  his  promised  reward,  and  scorn- 
fully chased  him  from  the  town.  On  June  26  he  was 
seen  again,  but  this  time  (Mr.  Browning  has  not  incor- 
porated this  little  fact)  fierce  of  mien  and  dressed  like  a 
huntsman,  yet  still  blowing  upon  the  magic  pipe.  Now  it 
was  not  the  rats  that  followed,  but  the  children.  .  .  . 

The  symbolism  of  the  soul  by  a  mouse  or  rat,  what- 
ever may  have  been  its  origin  and  original  meaning,  seems 
to  be  a  Slavonic  idea.2  Wherefore  in  this  particular 
Hameln  myth  we  can  almost  trace  a  history  of  the  meet- 
ing of  the  two  peoples  German  and  Slavonic,  and  the 
uniting  of  their  legends  into  one  story.  Let  us  suppose 
there  had  been  some  great  and  long-remembered  epidemic 
which  had  proved  particularly  fatal  to  the  children  of 
Hameln  and  the  country  round  about.  The  Slavonic 
dwellers  there — and  in  early  days  Slavonians  were  to  be 
found  as  far  west  as  the  Weser — would  speak  of  these 
deaths  mythically  as  the  departure  of  the  mice  or  rats 

1  Dutch  deh,  deken,  is  a  '  cloak '  as  well  as  a  '  deck ; '  dekken,  '  to  cover.' 

2  Kalston,  Songs  of  the  Russian  People.    Much  has  been  said,  and  by  many 
writers,  of  the  connection  between  this  story  and  the  name   of  Apollo 
Smintheus  (see  Cox,  Aryan  Myth.  &c.),  but  nothing  which  sheds  any  real 
light  upon  the  place  of  rats  or  mice  in  either  legend. 


THE  PIED  PIPER.  497 

(i.e.  the  souls),  and  perhaps,  keeping  the  tradition  which 
we  know  to  be  universally  Aryan  l  of  a  water-crossing, 
might  tell  of  the  souls  having  gone  to  the  river ;  further, 
they  might  deem  that  the  souls  had  been  led  thither 
by  a  piping  wind  god,  for  he  is  the  property  of  Slavs 
and  Germans  alike.  Then  the  German  inhabitants,  wish- 
ing to  express  the  legend  in  their  mythical  form,  would 
tell  how  the  same  Piper  had  piped  away  all  the  children 
from,  the  town ;  so  a  double  story  grew  up  about  the 
same  event.  The  Weser  represents  the  Biver  of  Death, 
and  might  have  served  for  the  children  as  well  as  for  the 
rats ;  to  make  the  legend  fuller,  another  image  of  death 
was  chosen  for  the  former,  the  mound  or  tomb.  That 
same  mountain  within  which  Charlemagne  and  Frederick 
Redbeard  sit,  waiting  for  the  Last  Day,  opened  to  let  the 
children  pass,2 

And  when  all  were  in  to  the  very  last, 
The  door  in  the  mountain- side  shut  fast ; 

not  to  unclose  again,  we  may  believe,  till  the  trumpets 
shall  sound  at  the  Day  of  Doom.  Gne  more  story — one  of 
universal  extension — which  bears  a  special  relation  to  the 
old  idea  of  Odhinn  is  the  story  of  the  Wandering  Jew. 
This  wretched  man,  as  the  legend  goes,  had  mocked  at  Jesus 
on  His  way  to  the  Cross,  and  his  doom  was  never  to  die 
and  never  to  rest,  but  to  wander  from  land  to  land  until 
the  Day  of  Judgment.  His  fate  and  the  fate  of  Hackel- 
berg  and  of  Yan  der  Dekken  are  therefore  essentially  the 
same.  In  this  case,  and  in  that  of  Hackelberg  or  the 
Flying  Dutchman,  nay,  in  the  case  of  nearly  all  the  heroes 
of  folk  tales,  the  idea  of  sin  and  punishment  is  either 
invented  later  than  the  original  legend  or  introduced  by  a 
side-wind  of  reflection  into  a  pure  nature  myth.  In  every 
instance  cited  the  criminal  is  really  none  other  than  the 
wind,  who  must  perforce  be  the  wanderer,  who  must  be 

1  See  Chap.  VI.  2  Ibid. 

K   K 


498  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

the  Streitmann  or  blusterous  battle-goer,  who  must  sit 
for  ever  in  the  mark  and  whistle  '  Hoho  !  hoto  ! ' 

The  Wandering  Jew,  says  the  legend,  may  rest  for  one 
night  in  the  year,  and  that  is  the  night  of  Shrove 
Tuesday,  or  of  Plough  Monday,  the  day  before.  Tradition 
varies  on  this  point.  Then,  if  anyone  will  leave  a  harrow 
in  the  field,  he  will  sit  upon  it  and  (this  is  not  said  in 
every  version)  bring  the  man  good  luck.  Others  say  that 
he  sits  upon  the  plough.1  This  part  of  the  myth  makes 
some  confusion  between  the  wind  god  and  the  earth 
goddess  ;  for  it  is  Frigg  or  Nerthus  who  is  connected  with 
the  plough  and  whose  rites  (dragging  her  from  place  to 
place  upon  a  car)  are  still  preserved  on  Shrove  Tuesday 
or  on  our  Plough  Monday.2 

The  stories  which  I  have  here  cited  are  such  as  are 
preserved  in  the  present  day ;  they  are  doubtless  but  in- 
considerable fragments  out  of  the  great  mass  of  Middle 
Age  legendary  lore.  Yet,  such  as  they  are,  they  will 
serve,  like  chippings  from  a  rock,  to  help  us  to  guess  at  the 
formations  of  thought  which  we  cannot  actually  see.  The 
story  of  Hackelberg  is  by  far  the  most  important.  It  is, 
in  the  first  place,  purely  Teutonic ;  it  is  spread  wherever  a 
German  race  has  dwelt,3  and  it  approaches  most  nearly 
to  the  representation  of  Odhinn  in  the  genuinely  heathen 
mythology.  We  have  seen  the  Wild  Huntsman  riding 
through  the  air,  accompanied  by  Ursula,  just  as  Odhinn 
rode  to  battle  accompanied  by  IVeyja  or  by  his  Valkyriur. 
Yet  there  is  a  difference  between  the  two  characters — a 
vast  one.  Hackelberg  is.  no  god,  but  more  than  half  a 
fiend.  There  are  some  stories  of  benefits  wrought  by  the 
Wild  Huntsman,  but  in  most  tales  he  and  his  dogs  work 
only  ill.  Wuotan  was  still  remembered  when  this  story 
grew  current,  remembered  by  all  the  German- speaking 

1  Sometimes  the  En-ige  Jude  rests  under  two  oaks  grown  across,  i.e.  the 
oaks  of  Wuotan  Christianised. — Xuhn,  ii.  No.  89. 

2  Chap.  VII.  §  2. 

3  Not  always  under  the  same  name  ;  but  that  fact  makes  the.  wide 'ex- 
tension of  the  story  more  significant. 


CHANGES  IN  SOCIAL  LIFE.  499 

races,  but  lie  was  remembered  with  fear  and  abhorrence. 
This  change  will  prepare  us  for  the  completer  change 
which  we  shall  have  to  note  anon  when  Odhinn  became  the 
Prince  of  Darkness,  and  his  swan  maidens,  the  Valkyriur, 
were  transformed  into  witches. 

From  the  two  standpoints  of  the  knightly  epic  and 
the  popular  tale,  we  may  form  our  estimate  of  the  imagi- 
native world  of  mediaeval  Europe.  If  we  choose  to  raise 
our  eyes  and  study  the  actual  world,  we  shall  see  how 
well  it  fitted  into  the  ideal  creation  which  clothed  it  round. 
From  the  time  of  Charlemagne  onwards,  during  all  those 
ages  in  which  the  Karling  epic  and  the  mediaeval  popular 
tale  were  growing  to  their  maturity,  society  had  been 
visibly  settling  down  into  a  single  fixed  condition  ;  it  was 
stiffening  into  that  unchangeable  though  beautiful  shape 
of  which  the  words  Feudalism  and  Catholicism  convey 
some  faint  picture,  and  which  is  shown  in  a  sort  of  allegory 
by  the  architecture  of  the  Gothic  cathedral. 

No  sooner  had  the  conquests  of  the  Teuton  races  been 
secured  and  their  external  enemies  been  put  to  silence, 
than  the  people  began  again  to  turn  their  arms  against 
one  another.  Once  each  lesser  leader  had  been  like  the 
subordinate  officer  of  an  army,  in  strict  dependence  upon 
the  chief  of  the  whole  ;  but  no  sooner  did  they  begin  to 
establish  themselves  permanently  in  the  new  lands  than 
they  set  up  claims  of  independence,  and  erected  their  own 
tribes  or  followings  into  miniature  principalities.  Then 
arose  the  same  rivalry  and  the  same  slumbering  or  active 
war  between  barony  and  barony  which  had  in  old  Teutonic 
days  existed  between  village  and  village.  We  see  this 
state  of  feeling  plainly  reflected  in  the  '  Chansons  de 
Geste; '  for  even  in  the  earliest  among  them,  the  (  Chanson 
de  Roland,'  Ganelon  and  Roland  make  no  scruple  of  defy- 
ing one  another  while  in  the  presence  of  Charles,  in  whose 
army  they  are  both  officers.  Ganelon's  great  act  of 
treachery,  whereby  the  whole  of  Charles's  rear-guard, 

X  K  2 


500  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

with  Eoland  at  the  head,  perished  in  the  pass  of  Ron- 
cesvalles,  was  chiefly  brought  about  by  his  desire  tc 
revenge  himself  for  the  insult  which  he  had  received  from 
Roland.  The  incident  shows  us  how  much  stronger  might 
be  the  influence  of  a  private  feud  than  of  public  duty. 
In  other  ' Chansons'  the  same  feelings  are  expressed  much 
more  openly.  In  very  many  of  them  we  see  a  powerful 
baron  bidding  defiance  to  Charles  and  to  all  his  army  ; 
as,  for  example,  did  Girard  de  Viane,  one  of  the  great 
heroes  of  these  lays.  One  poem,  '  Garin  le  Loherin,'  is 
entirely  devoted  to  the  description  of  feudal  wars,  and 
contains  nothing  else  but  the  history  of  a  long  vendetta 
feud  between  two  houses. 

The  growth  of  such  a  feeling  must  have  made  men 
look  to  the  security  of  their  homes.  Wherefore  the  result 
was  that  in  the  age  of  Charlemagne  and  in  the  ages  which 
succeeded  him  we  see  the  gradual  rise  of  more  and  more 
castles  and  the  steady  abandonment  of  the  open  villas  in 
which  the  chief  notables  had  before  lived.  The  Teutons, 
when  they  came  into  new  lands,  took  away  the  villas  from 
their  possessors  and  adopted  them  for  their  own  homes. 
As  these  Tell  into  decay,  in  their  place  strongholds  began 
t"o  rise  on  every  side.  The  villas  had  stood  in  open  sunny 
plains  by  river  banks ;  but  the  castles  perched  themselves 
on  barren  rocks  or  in  steep  mountain  passes,  and,  like  the 
spirit  of  medieval  Christianity  itself,  they  became  at  once 
dark  and  aspiring. 

The  convents  followed  the  example  of  the  castles. 
They  too  had  once  stood  unenclosed,  unguarded,  in  the 
plain  and  by  the  river.  A  type  of  that  earlier  convent 
was  the  one  built  by  St.  Eligius  l  (Eloi)  near  Liege,  of 
which  St.  Ouen,  the  biographer  of  Eligius,  gives  us  a 
delightful  picture.  It  was  merely  a  country  villa  con- 
verted by  the  saint  to  his  pious  purpose.  It  stood  in  the 
midst  of  beautiful  woods  and  bounded  on  one  side  by  a 

1  A  contemporary  of  the  Merovingian  king  Dagobert  I. 


CASTLES  AND  CONVENTS.  501 

stream.  The  convent  grounds  were  enclosed  by  no  wall, 
only  by  a  bank  of  earth  surmounted  by  a  hedge.  An 
orchard  immediately  surrounded  the  monastery.  (  And  in 
the  midst  of  this  delightful  retreat,'  exclaims  St.  Ouen, 
'  the  saddest  mind  is  invigorated  and  enjoys  its  share  of 
the  blessings  of  a  terrestrial  paradise.'  * 

In  the  Carlovingian  age  the  religious  houses  gradually 
changed  their  appearance  and  their  sites.  They,  like  the 
castles,  sought  to  place  themselves  upon  elevated  spots, 
6  to  be  nearer  heaven/  and  they  too  became  gloomy  and 
armed.  This  change  involved  a  change  in  the  internal 
life  of  the  convents.  Constant  work  in  the  fields  and  in 
the  open  air  had  been  one  of  the  rules  of  St.  Benedict.  This 
was  first  set  aside  by  the  great  founder  of  Western  monas- 
tic institutions,  St.  Columba.  It  fell  more  and  more 
into  disuse.  Instead  of  such  healthy  exercise  the  monks 
gave  themselves  up  to  sedentary  pursuits ;  and  when  not 
engaged  in  religious  exercises  they  were  copying  and  illu- 
minating MSS.,  writing  down  the  '  Lives  of  the  Saints,'  or 
what  not.  It  is  easy  to  guess  what  effect  the  change  of 
occupation  had  upon  the  thoughts  of  the  cenobites  and 
upon  the  development  of  the  monastic  system  of  theology. 
.  The  church  architecture  was  affected  by  this  new 
taste  for  building.  Violet-le-Duc  says  that  the  seeds  of 
that  architecture  which  afterwards  grew  into  the  Gothic 
were  implanted  in  the  days  of  Charlemagne,2  although  men 
were  yet  many  centuries  ahead  of  the  perfecting  of  that 
wondrous  growth.  While  the  church  remained  still  in 
the  basilica  form,  the  first  change  was  introduced  at  this 
time  by  the  adding  of  the  apse,  the  roof  of  which  apse 
was  generally  a.rched.  In  this  way  men  first  passed  from 
the  flat  roof  to  the  round  one.  A  more  important  novelty 
still  was  the  building  of  church  towers,  which  likewise 
began  in  the  days  of  Charlemagne.  The  towers  were  not 
attached  to  the  churches,  but  stood  beside  them,  as  we  still 

1  Vita  S.  Miff.  c.  xvi. 

2  Diet,  de  VArcli.,  art.  '  Architecture.' 


502  OUTLINES  OF  PEIJVIITIVE  BELIEF. 

commonly  see  them  standing  beside  the  churches  of  North 
Italy ;  and  from  these  heights  the  bells  now  sent  out  their 
new  music  over  the  plain.1  To  us  they  are  the  voices  from 
a  bygone  world. 

The  symbolism  of  Christianity — its  white  robes  of 
baptism,  its  curtains,  its  bell  tones,  its  lighted  candles 
and  incense — must  have  told  more  upon  the  imaginative 
spirit  of  heathenism  than  any  mere  preaching  could  have 
done.  Take  the  picture  which  Bseda  draws  for  us  of  the 
first  landing  of  St.  Augustine  on  the  shores  of  Kent — of  the 
procession  which  the  Apostle  and  his  brother  missionaries 
formed  with  their  crosses  and  tapers  ;  of  their  white  robes, 
their  chaunting.2  More  wondrous  even  than  the  church 
bells  was  the  church  organ.  Organs  were  said  to  have 
been  first  introduced  in  the  West  by  Charles,  and  to  have 
been  brought  to  him  by  an  embassy  from  the  Byzantine 
Emperor ;  and  tradition  tells  us  of  a  woman  who,  in  the 
reign  of  Charlemagne's  successor,  Louis,  entered  the 
cathedral  at  Metz,  and  there  suddenly  heard  an  organ  for 
the  first  time.  She  was  so  overcome  with  emotion  at  the 
sound  that  she  fell  down  and  died  there.  Is  the  event  an 
impossibility  ?  I  scarcely  think  so. 

From  this  time  forth  mediaeval  life  and  society  began 
to  take  their  permanent  shapes.  And  mediaeval  life  and 
society  rested,  as  we  know,  upon  two  pillars,*  each  mighty 
but  not  of  equal  strength.  The  weaker  of  the  two  pillars 
was  feudalism,  the  stronger  and  the  more  durable  was 
Catholicism.  Now,  as  regards  feudalism  ;  modern  research 
and  our  more  accurate  knowledge  concerning  the  growth 
of  human  institutions  has  tended  greatly  to  modify  the 
views  which  were  once  held  concerning  it.  Feudalism  was 
once  thought  to  have  been  an  entirely  new  birth  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  a  pure  invention  of  those  times  ;  but  this 
theory  is  not  now  generally  maintained.  On  the  contrary, 

1  New  mii-si c.    Bells  are  not  mentioned  in  any  legends  of  the  Ada  Sane- 
toruin,  which  are  of  an  earlier  date  than  the  seventh  century. 

2  See  also  Grimm,  D.  M.  i.  4  ;  Greg.  Tur.  ii.  31. 


CATHOLICISM  AND  FEUDALISM.  503 

it  is  recognised  that  feudalism  is  a  descendant — in  a  re- 
mote degree  indeed,  and  with  many  features  unknown  to 
the  parent — of  the  German  society  of  prehistoric  times, 
of  that  ancient  constitution  of  the  village  community  con- 
cerning which  in  a  former  chapter  something  was  said. 
Feudalism  is  a  return  to  as  near  an  imitation  of  the 
village  community  as  the  changed  conditions  of  surround- 
ing things  would  allow.  During  their  era  of  invasion  the 
German  races  had  exchanged  their  primaeval  social  or- 
ganisation for  the  constitution  of  an  army.  In  place 
of  their  old  tribal  headmen  or  petty  kings  they  had 
ranged  themselves  under  elected  military  leaders,  duces, 
heretogas.1  This  camp  life  lasted  very  many  years,  and 
during  their  revolution  some  of  the  invading  nations  forgot 
altogether  their  past,  and  when  they  came  to  settle  down 
adopted  or  imitated  the  civilisation  of  the  Gauls  and 
Romans.  This  was  the  case  with  the  Goths  of  Italy,  of 
Southern  Gaul,  and  of  Spain  ;  in  a  less  degree  it  was  the 
case  with  the  Lombards.  With  the  Franks  and  the  other 
invaders  of  the  North — and  these  were  the  races  who  gave 
the  tone  to  the  civilisation  on  this  side  of  the  Alps  and 
Pyrenees — it  was  not  so.  When  they  settled  down  they 
fell  back  upon  a  social  state  which  does  recall  the  Teutonic 
society  of  prehistoric  days.  They  did  this  not  in  conscious 

1  The  rex  (i.e.  riks  or  kimunc)  is  distinguished  from  the  dux  (i.e. 
heretoga,  herzog)  by  Tacitus  (Germ.  c.  7).  We  must  for  historic  Germany 
(i.e.  the  Teuton  race  after  the  era, of  invasion  began)  distinguish  two  kinds 
of  society — (1)  the  peaceful,  which  implies  the  village  community  and  the 
king,  (2)  the  warlike,  which  implies  the  camp  and  the  herzog.  Of  course 
this  is  not  a  fixed  rule,  and  applies  only  to  those  places  where  part  of  the 
nation  remained  behind  as  a  kind  of  depot.  When  a  whole  nation  took  to 
conquest  or  migration  the  king  was  general  also  and  leader.  The  two 
types  of  society  are  reflected  in  the  legends  of  this  time  of  invasion :  the 
typical  hero,  Beowulf  or  Siegfried,  who 

'  Durch  seines  Leibes  Stiirke  ritt  in  manche  Land' 

(Nibelungen,  87,  Busching), 

being  the  representative  of  the  young  blood,  is  the  herzog ;  Higelac,  Sieg- 
mund,  Gunther,  are  the  kings.  See  also  some  remarks  of  M.  Guizot  on  the 
camp  life  and  comparatively  small  numbers  of  the  invaders,  Cours  de 
VHistoire  de  France,  i.  279 ;  and  Michelet,  Hist,  de  France,  i.  309. 


504  OUTLINES  OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

imitation  or  even  in  recollection  of  their  past,  but  because 
the  national  character  tends  always  to  form  around  itself 
the  same  social  atmosphere.  Feudalism  was  the  nearest 
compromise  they  could  make  with  the  new  sort  of  civilisa- 
tion into  which  they  had  been  forced.  The  English  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  Christianised  Germans  beyond  the 
Rhine  upon  the  other  side,  accepted  in  time  this  compact 
and  adopted  feudalism. 

This,  then,  was  in  matters  of  social  governance  the 
compromise  effected  between  ancient  German  prejudices 
and  a  changed  outer  world.  Not  less  was  mediaeval 
Christianity  also,  and  in  an  especial  sense  the  Christianity 
north  of  the  Alps,  a  compromise  in  matters  of  belief  and 
of  thought  with  bygone  times.  Mediseval  Christianity 
likewise  had  its  roots  in  prehistoric  German  heathenism. 
Some  of  these  roots  at  least  were  there ;  for,  like  the 
tree  Yggdrasill,  Catholicism  had  many  different  roots  in 
many  different  places;  some  were  in  heaven,  but  some 
were,  we  cannot  question  it,  on  earth,  and  some  perchance 
in  hell. 

Religion  may  extend  its  sway  over  many  regions  of 
man's  thought,  It  may  chiefly  affect  his  political  feelings, 
or  his  social  morality,  or  his  artistic  sense.  It  may  give 
new  dignity  to  man,  and  impart  to  him  added  pleasure  in 
life  and  in  the  works  of  life.  These  were  not  the  aims  of 
mediseval  Christianity.  The  essential  lesson  which  it 
strove  to  teach  was  a  profound  sense  of  the  supernatural, 
of  a  spiritual  world  enclosing  this  sensible  world,  as  our 
earth  is  surrounded  by  its  atmosphere,  and  of  the  little 
span  of  our  life  bounded  by  two  eternities.  This  sense  of 
mystery  and  of  spiritual  dominion  found  its  nourishment 
in  the  thoughts  which  through  centuries  of  gloomy  forest 
life  had  grown  familiar  to  the  Teutonic  mind,  and  which 
we  know  had  left  a  deep  impression  on  Teutonic  belief. 
And  although  the  creed  of  heathen  Germany  was  in  itself 
sensuous  and  material  and  concerned  only  in  questioning 
the  aspects  of  external  nature,  yet  it  had  in  it  the  germs 


THE  GOTHIC  CATHEDKAL.  505 

of  that  immaterial  perception  of  the  Infinite  which,  so 
characterises  mediaeval  Catholicism.  It  gave  a  training  to 
the  imagination  such  as  was  destined  afterwards  to  bear 
abundant  fruit.  Awe  and  mystery  were  as  the  nourishing 
rain  and  dew  to  the  belief  of  the  heathen  German.  Where- 
fore this  belief  developed  afterwards  into  Catholicism 
almost  as  necessarily  as  the  society  of  the  village  commune 
grew  into  the  system  of  feudalism.  But  in  the  case  of 
feudalism  and  Catholicism  alike,  although  there  is  a 
resemblance  to  the  earlier  life  and  thought  of  pre-Christian 
days,  there  is  also  a  strange  difference.  It  seems  as  if  in* 
either  case  a  living  organism  had  been  suddenly  petrified 
by  some  gorgon  glance.  The  thing  is  fixed  in  its  highest 
development  truly,  a  growth  of  wondrous  dimensions  and 
of  multiform  delicate  interlacing?,  but  it  has  not  the  power 
of  further  growth.  Though  made  up  of  the  fairest  shapes, 
it  is  of  stone. 

By  gentle  stages  the  Gothic  cathedral  grew  to  its 
perfect  form,  and  became  the  best  expression  of  the 
thought,  the  belief,  the  whole  world-philosophy  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Gradually  the  Roman  basilica  changed  into 
the  Eomanesque  church ;  slowly  the  Romanesque  church 
raised  its  roof  and  narrowed  its  aisles  and  multiplied 
its  pillars,  until  what  had  once  been  a  house  four-square, 
visible  frpm  one  end  to  the  other,  grew  into  a  very  forest 
of  stony  trees,  with  glades  and  by-paths  and  dark  recesses 
as  numerous  and  as  bewildering  as  in  the  forest  itself. 
What  had  once  been  a  common  dwelling-house  became 
the  seat  of  a  mysterious,  unseen,  and  awful  Presence. 
But  we  cannot  say  that  this  cathedral  was  altogether  a 
new  creation  of  mankind,  or  that  it  had  no  relationship 
to  those  forest  fastnesses  in  which  through  so  many  ages 
the  ancestors  of  all  the  nations  of  Northern  Europe — the 
Teutons  and  the  Celts  alike  ] — had  paid  their  vows  to  the 
Wind  God.  And  if  the  Gothic  cathedral  do  own  some 

1  See  p.  332. 


506  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

distant  cousinhood  to  the  forest  temple  of  prehistoric 
days,  then  certainly  mediseval  Christianity  cannot  refuse 
to  acknowledge  a  relationship  to  ancient  Northern  hea- 
thenism. 

It  was  a  belief  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  cunning  Satan, 
in  order  to  gain  sway  over  men's  souls,  would  sometimes 
enter  the  grass  of  the  field,  which  in  this  way,  when  eaten 
by  the  ox,  transferred  his  devilish  nature  to  the  flesh  of 
that  animal ;  then  when  the  ox  beef  was  consumed  by  man 
.his  being  became  thereby  corrupted  and  an  entry  was  made 
for  sin.^  It  was  a  sort  of  sacrament  reversed.  We  might 
suppose  some  such  transfer  of  spirit  to  have  taken  place 
when  the  shrines  of  German  heathendom  were  made  the 
sites  of  temples  to  the  new  faith.  Boniface  and  Willibrod 
went  forth  cutting  down  the  sacred  trees  of  Odhinn  and 
Thorr,  and  making  out  of  them  timber  for  Christian 
churches.  They  might  well  have  taken  warning  from  the 
story  of  Satan  in  the  grass.  For  in  very  truth  there  was 
a  spirit  lurking  in  those  old  shrines  who  refused  to  be 
exorcised  and  driven  away  ;  the  ancients  would  have  called 
him  the  ^aifjbwv  sTri^ptos,  the  genius  loci,  the  genius  of  the 
place ;  what  we  more  prosaically  name  the  association  of 
ideas.  Christianity  found  nothing  so  hard  to  drive  away 
as  these  genii  of  the  soil;  indeed,  she  never  succeeded  in 
driving  them  away  utterly,  but  had  to  make  compromises 
with  them  and  to  allow  some  at  least  (some  formal  changes 
made  in  outward  guise)  to  retain  their  homes. 

In  the  German  tongues  we  find  that  a  word  which  in 
one  dialect  means  holy  or  temple  means  in  another  forest. 
And  this  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  the  forest  was  ever 
holy  to  the  Teutons,  and  their  sacred  places  were  ever 
their  forest  glades.  When  Catholicism  had  attained  its 
full  growth,  and  had  by  successive  changes  moulded  its 
holy  place  to  express  in  the  fullest  way  its  hidden  thought, 
it  once  more  worshipped  in  a  grove — a  grove  of  stone. 
In  place  of  the  trunks  and  branching  boughs  men  looked 
along  endless  aisles  of  pillars  and  up  into  a  dark  fretted 


THE   GOTHIC   CATHEDRAL.  507 

roof.  This  expresses  in  sum  the  difference  between  the 
old  life  and  the  new.  The  village  community  of  ancient 
days  had  been  stiffened  into  the  immutable  society  of 
feudalism,  and  the  old  creed  with  its  ancient  shrine  had 
been  petrified  into  Catholicism  and  its  cathedral.  The 
trees  were  in  a  fashion  still  there.  But  they  no  longer 
put  on  fresh  forms  with  the  changing  seasons.  The 
branches  no  longer  moved,  swayed  by  the  wind.  No 
glimpses  of  a  higher  heaven  could  be  seen  above  them ; 
no  stars  shone  down  through  their  interstices.  Yet  here 
the  old  associations  of  solemnity  and  gloom  remained. 
Here  now  dwelt  secretum  illud  the  Sacred  Presence  which 
the  Teutons  had  so  long  worshipped. 

Let  us  enter  this  temple  of  Catholicism.  In  the  centre 
we  see  a  lighted  altar,  the  rays  from  which  are  soon  lost 
among  the  clusters  of  pillars  and  in  the  vaulted  roof. 
Where  this  light  reaches  it  shines  upon  beatified  saints 
or  angels,  who  spread  their  protecting  wings  and  look 
down  upon  the  worshipper.  Here  we  are  safe,  within  the 
charmed  circle,  close  to  the  sacred  relics  or  to  the  Body 
of  Christ ;  but  wherever  pillar  or  groin  throws  a  shadow, 
there  may  be  detected,  flying  from  the  light  and  cherish- 
ing the  darkness,  images  of  the  damned  in  hideous  pain, 
or  it  may  be  devils  in  wait  for  the  erring  soul.  And  now 
those  bat-like  creatures  which  had  once  flitted  about  the 
outer  trees  of  the  grove,  uttering  mournful  cries,  are  within 
the  sacred  aisles,  themselves  turned  to  stone.  The  organ 
sends  forth  its  solemn,  appealing  sounds,  the  host  is  lifted 
up,  the  chaunt  arises,  and  the  powers  of  darkness  are  for 
awhile  defeated.  Yet  this  organ  tone  is  but  the  wind  of 
the  forest  made  melodious ;  it  is  Qdhinn  himself  trans- 
formed and  brought  into  obedience  to  the  new  faith.  The 
organ's  music  puts  to  flight  the  powers  of  darkness ;  but 
they  are  still  there.  Even  if  they  are  driven  from  the 
church  they  are  still  without  the  walls.1  What  if  the 

1  Throughout  the  France  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  Germany  and 
England  likewise,  it  was  the  custom  on  certain  days  to  make  procession 


508  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE   BELIEF. 

worshipper,  passing  alone  in  the  night,  forget  to  cross 
himself,  to  bow  before  the  altar  or  to  dip  his  hand  into 
the  holy  water  ? 

For  all  around  the  Christian,  nearer  than  he  could  tell, 
lay  that  dreadful  world  of  spirits.  Jotunheimar  had 
drawn  its  coasts  closer  than  they  had  been  in  heathen 
times.  This  was  the  case  even  in  the  days  when  the  poem 
of  Beowulf  was  written.  Only  the  heathen  might  venture 
to  live  far  away  from  human  habitations.  And  it  was  this 
dread  of  the  outer  world  which  kept  men  fixed  to  one  spot, 
and  made  them  bear  the  burden  of  that  feudal  system 
which  pressed  with  terrible  weight  on  lord  and  tenant 
alike.  The  vassal  was  attached  to  the  soil,  and  the  lord 
too  was  rooted  to  the  rock  from  which  his  castle  sprang. 
*  No  land  without  its  lord,  also  no  lord  without  his  land 
Man  belongs  to  a  single  place.  He  is  judged  according 
as  men  can  say  he  is  of  high  and  low  place.  There  he  is 
localised,  immovable,  held  down  under  the  weight  of  his 
heavy  castle  and  his  heavy  armour.'  * 

This  is  the  picture  which  is  held  up  to  us  when  we  try 
and  look  into  the  Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  baron 
in  his  castle  alone,  unneighboured  save  for  purposes  of 
war.  Ail  without  his  own  domain  was  strange,  and  in 
great  measure  under  the  governance  of  spirits.  The 
distant  sounds  he  heard,  like  those  bells  which  ( from 
Langdale  Pike  and  Witches'  Lair  '  gave  answer  to  the  bells 
of  Sir  Leoline,2  were  the  sound  of  sinful  spirits  compelled 
by  the  Prince  of  Darkness.  These  tales  of  fear  grew  from 
age  to  age  since  the  castle  first  rose  upon  the  rock.  The 

through  the  town,  carrying  the  image  of  Satan  portrayed  as  a  dragon.  The 
procession  knocked  down  everyone  who  crossed  its  path,  and  came  at  last 
to  the  church  door,  where  the  evil  one  was  exercised.  The  image,  we  see, 
though  it  cannot  enter  the  church,  triumphs  everywhere  else.  In  the  South 
they  called  the  image  drac  or  tarasque ;  in  the  North  he  was  called  gar- 
gouille,  and  under  this  latter  name  we  still  see  him  outside  our  churches. 

1  Michelet,  Hist,  de  France,  ii.  392. 

2  Chrixtabel. 


TRANSFORMATION   OF    ODHINN.  509 

intense  gloom  which  follows  in  the  track  of  ennui  deepened 
the  natural  sombreness  of  all  men's  thoughts.  The  gloom 
crept  round  them  like  a  fog,  around  the  baron  and  his 
men-at-arms  in  the  castle,  around  the  villagers  beneath 
the  castle  hill,  and  thence  it  infected  those  men — growing 
fewer  from  year  to  year — who  lived  away  in  the  outlands. 
This  "was  the  time  when  the  old  popular  mythology  of 
Wuotan  and  the  gods  of  Walhalla  changed  its  guise, 
when,  passing  through  the  characters  of  the  Wild  Hunts- 
man and  the  Wandering  Jew.  the  god  was  gradually  trans- 
formed into  the  likeness  of  a  fiend.  Then  grew  up  that 
new  system  of  mythology,  or  we  may  say  that  new  worship, 
which  we  call  witchcraft. 

The  splendour  of  the  Gothic  cathedral  shows  us  one 
side  of  the  belief  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  there  is 
another  side  very  different  from  that.  The  true  anti- 
thesis, and  yet  in  a  manner  the  counterpart,  to  mediseval 
Catholicism  is  the  mediseval  belief  concerning  witch- 
craft. 

The  partial  transformation,  which  we  noted  just  now, 
of  the  chief  god  of  ancient  heathenism  into  Hackelberg 
must  prepare  us  for  his  total  change  into  the  Prince  of 
Darkness,  the  f  Prince  of  the  Powers  of  the  Air ; '  for  this 
last,  out  of  all  the  Biblical  names  for  Satan,  was  the  one 
most  commonly  used  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  one 
which  suited  him  best  in  his  Odinic  character.  The  most 
striking  and'  characteristic  of  all  the  Odhinn  myths  was 
that  which  told  of  the  god  and  the  Yalkyriur  riding 
together  to  the  battle  field ;  this  in  its  transformed  con- 
dition became  the  great  Satan  myth  of  the  Sabbath.  Hence 
it  is  that  we  find  the  metropolis  of  mediseval  Satan  worship 
to  have  been  the  last  stronghold  of  Odinism.  This  lay  in 
the  mountainous  land  of  Saxony,  the  Harz. 

We  can  in  some  instances  trace  the  process  which  has 
transformed  lovely  shield  maidens,  the  companions  of  a 
god,  once  the  ideal  of  womanhood  to  the  rude  chivalry  of 
the  North,  into  wretched  hags,  riding  upon  broomsticks, 


510  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF, 

upon  trusses  of  hay,  or  upon  sieves,1  to  join  the  Prince 
of  Darkness  in  his  midnight  orgies. 

In  the  story  of  Balderus  and  Hotherus  in  Saxo 
Grammaticus,  which  tells  in  a  form  more  nearly  resembling 
the  form  of  mediaeval  legends  the  history  of  the  death  of 
Balder,  we  meet  with  some  wood-women  in  a  transition 
state  between  Yalkyriur  and  witches.  It  was  the  part  of 
the  Valkyria  to  chaunt  runes  over  her  Liebliny,  her  chosen 
warrior,  and  to  bless  his  arms  against  hurt ;  she,  as  much 
as  her  later  representative,  was  a  professor  of  magic.  But 
the  Yalkyriur  had  no  need  to  conceal  their  powers ;  they 
were  beings  of  the  air  and  sunlight,  not  of  caves  arid 
darkness.  The  wood- women  to  whom  Hotherus  goes  do 
for  him  just  what  the  Yalkyriur  always  did  for  their  heroes, 
just  what,  for  example,  Sigrdrifa  (Brynhild)  had  done  for 
Agnar;  but  they  are  only  to  be  found  in  darkness;  they 
have  to  be  sought  out  in  the  thickest  parts  of  the  forest 
or  in  caves. 

Balderus  and  Hotherus  are  in  the  story  rivals  for  the 
love  of  Nanna,  and  are  at  war.  And  Saxo  relates  how, 
when  Hotherus  was  hard  pressed  by  his  enemy,  it  fell  out 
that  one  day,  when  hunting,  having  lost  his  way  in  a  fog; 
he  came  unawares  upon  a  conclave  of  young  maidens,  who 
saluted  him  and  of  whom  he  enquired  their  name.  '  They 
affirmed  that  it  was  under  their  guidance  and  countenance 
that  the  fortune  of  a  battle  was  determined,  for  they  were 
often  present  at  battles,  when  no  one  beheld  them,  and 
brought  a  wished  for  victory  by  their  friendly  aid.'  They 
promised  help  to  Hotherus,  but  good  fortune  did  not 
always  attend  him,  and  afterwards  we  find  him  again  in 
Denmark,  beaten  and  hard  pressed  by  Balderus.  In  this 
condition  he  was  one  day  wandering  in  a  vast  and  trackless 

'  In  a  sieve  I'll  hither  sail '  (i.e.  corn  sieve). — Macbeth. 
The  use  of  this  means  of  locomotion  is  common  among  witches  in  folk 
tales.  Moreover  tradition  says  that  a  witch  can  be  detected  by  any 
person  who  looks  through  a  corn  sieve  (Kuhn,  ii.  No.  77,  and  Castren, 
F.  M.  p.  68).  Is  this  because  the  witches  are  sometimes  earth  goddesses 
transformed  ? 


TRANSFORMATION   OF  THE   VALKYRIUR.  511 

wood,  when  he  found  by  chance  the  cave  inhabited  by  his 
friends  the  maidens,  whom  he  knew  for  those  who  had 
formerly  presented  him  with  an  invulnerable  garment. 
They  enquired  of  him  the  cause  of  his  coming,  and 'he 
narrated  to  them  the  unlucky  course  which  events  had 
taken,  and,  complaining  of  the  misfortune  -which  had 
attended  his  endeavour  and  of  the  non-fulfilment  of  their 
promises,  he  declared  that  he  would  give  up  his  designs. 
But  the  nymphs  assured  him  that  he  had  also  inflicted 
great  damage  upon  his  opponent;  moreover  that  the  for- 
tune of  war  would  be  his,  if  he  could  obtain  possession 
of  some  magic  food  which  was  effective  in  renewing  the 
strength  of  Balderus.  Hotherus  obtained  this  food,  which 
was  made  of  the  spittle  of  serpents,  and  on  his  way  back 
met  Balderus,  whom  he  wounded  so  severely  that  he  died 
in  the  next  day's  battle.1 

I  have  kept  the  names  which  Saxo  employs ;  he  calls 
these  Valkyriur  nymphs.  But,  recalling  first  what  we 
remember  of  the  nature  of  the  shield  maidens  of  Odhinn, 
and  turning  from  them  to  contemplate  the  mediaeval 
witch,  do  not  these  nymphs  of  Saxo  seem  to  be  in  the 
actual  course  of  change  from  one  t"o  the  other?  They 
preside  over  all  battles  and  determine  the  issue  of  them ; 
but  they  have  their  dwellings  in  caves  of  the  wood,  and 
their  magic  food  made  with  the  spittle  of  serpents. 
This  last  reminds  us  forcibly  of  the  witches'  cauldron  in 
<  Macbeth '  or  in  *  Faust.' 

We  have  seen  that  witchcraft  was  not  only  a  form  of 
belief,  but  likewise,  to  some  extent,  a  form  of  worship. 

Some  suppose  the  sieve  to  typify  the  whirlwind,  which  is,  of  course, 
a  very  suitable  accompaniment  to  Odhinn- Satan  and  to  his  bar.d,  and 
which  also  constitutes  a  recognised  form  of  punishment  in  hell  (see  Inferno, 
canto  5). 

1  This  part  of  the  narrative,  the  climax,  as  one  would  have  thought,  is 
told  with  a  brevity  which  reminds  us  of  some  passages  in  the  idylls  of  a 
great  contemporary  poet.  '  Qui  cum  pristinum  iter  rernetiendo  calle  quo 
venerat  re'pedaret,  obvii  sibi  Balderi  latus  hausit  eumque  seminecem  pros- 
travit.'-—  Historia  Danica,  lib.  iii. 


512  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

We  should  be  wrong  if  we  imagined  that  it  was  the  mere 
horror  of  magic  which,  made  up  the  dread  and  the  detes- 
tation with  which  witchcraft  came  to  be  regarded  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Magic  was  an  idea  so  familiar  to  the 
minds  of  men  at  that  time  that  it  had  scarce  the  power 
of  alone  exciting  any  very  strong  feeling.  Magic  was 
practised  as  much  in  causes  accounted  good  as  in  bad 
ones.  Did  the  witch  cut  off  the  hair  from  a  corpse,  and 
use  that  to  raise  the  wind;  why  then  Christianity  too 
used  the  hair  of  a  corpse  (of  a  saint  *),  the  paring  of  his 
nails,  as  talismans  against  shipwreck.  The  magic  wand 
or  the  dead  man's  hand  could  make  bolts  fly  back  and 
locks  open,  and  point  to  treasure  hidden  deep  in  the 
ground.  So  could  the  bones  of  a  martyr,  the  nail  or  arrow, 
or  spear,  which  had  pierced  him  and  drunk  his  blood,  his 
dress,  or  even  a  fragment  of  any  of  these  relics.  We  have 
in  the  Kalewala,  and  more  sparsely  in  the  Sagas,  wonder- 
ful descriptions  of  the  way  in  which  the  steel — sword  or 
axe — was  gifted  with  its  power  to  hurt.  Had  Roland 
been  a  Norse  hero  instead  of  a  champion  of  Christianity, 
we  should  have  had  the  account  of  the  runes  said  over  his 
sword  Durendal  by  some  Valkyria  maid.  As  it  is  we  find 
it  owed  its  indestructibility  to  more  material,  and  there- 
fore lower,  kinds  of  magic.  There  was  in  the  guard  of 
Durendal  a  tooth  of  St.  Peter,  some  of  the  blood  of  St. 
Basil,  of  the  hair  of  St.  Denis,  of  the  weeds  of  the 
Virgin ; 2  and,  as  a  further  example  of  the  pure  mate- 
rialism that  appears  in  the  conception  of  magic  at  this 
time,  we  find  that  the  power  which  the  relics  bestowed 
would  be  as  useful  to  a  Saracen  if  he  gained  possession  of 
the  sword  as  they  were  to  Roland. 

The  Church  therefore  did  not  condemn  witchcraft  on 

1  A  hair  of  St.  Peter  was  sent  to  Norman  William  by  the  Pope  to  aid 
him  in  his  invasio'n  of  England. 

2  Chanson  de  Roland,  1.  2346  sqq.     On  this  account,  becaiise  Durendal 
would  be  as  effective  in  the  hands  of  a  Saracen  as  in  that  of  a  Christian, 
Eoland  just  before  his  death  makes  every  effort  to  break  the  steel,  but 
cannot.     See  also  what  was  said  in  Chap.  JI.  p.  89. 


WITCHCRAFT.  513 

account  of  its  material  and  superstitious  character.  In 
earlier  and  more  enlightened  days  that  had  been  the 
accusation  brought  against  it.  '  Our  miracles,'  Augustine 
had  said,  '  are  worked  by  simple  faith  and  the  assurance 
which  comes  of  trust  in  God,  not  by  auguries  or  sacri- 
legious enchantments.' l  But  this  was  not  the  feeling 
of  a  later  age.  The  real  distinction  between  the  witch 
and  the  priest  was  that  the  one  was  the  practiser  of  a 
black  art,  the  other  of  a  white  one  ;  one  was  the  votary  of 
Satan,  the  other  of  Christ.  This  was  quite  well  under- 
stood on  both  sides ;  the  sorcerer  introduced  into  his  cult 
of  Satan 2  a  ritual  the  distinct  antithesis  of  the  Catholic 
ritual ;  a  black  mass  was  opposed  to  the  white  mass.  In 
this  way  witchcraft  grew  to  be  distinctly  a  craft.  It  be- 
came, that  is  to  say,  a  social  body,  and  had  a  mystery  (of 
the  religious  sort)  uniting  its  members.  This  cult  was, 
in  all  probability,  originally  a  mere  survival  of  heathenism, 
and  the  mystery,  like  all  other  mysteries,  at  first  of  a 
simple  kind,  developing  afterwards  into  more  elaborate 
rites. 

This  mystery  is  known  to  us  as  the  Witches'  Sabbath. 
It  would  be  a  mistake  to  think  of  the  celebration  as  a 
purely  imaginary  one  created  by  popular  superstition,  and 
existing  only  in  the  minds  of  brain-sick  old  women  who 
fancied  they  had  attended  it.  The  Walpurgis-nacht  meet- 
ing on  the  Brocken  may  have  been  fancy,  but,  if  so,  it  was 
only  the  imaginary  consummation  of  a  hundred,  a 
thousand,  a  hundred  thousand  Sabbaths  which  were  really 
celebrated  in  different  parts  of  Europe.  They  were  not 
confined  to  a  few,  nor  were  they  everywhere  regarded  with 
the  horror  which  priestly  chroniclers  feel  and  would  have 

1  De  Civ.  Dei,  viii.  9. 

2  Some  popular  tales  witness  in  a  curious  way  to  the  affection  which 
the  peasantry  felt  for  Satan,  i.e.  for  Satan- Odhinn.     They  try  to  save  him 
by  making  him  turn  Christian.    Compare,  for  example,  the  stories  in  Kuhn's 
collection   (No.   220),  The  Devil's  Longing  for    God,  WeUng   becomes  a 
Christian,  Weking's  Baptism,  &c.  (294,  &c.) 

L    L 


514  OUTLINES   OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

us  feel.  In  some  places  they  were  openly  practised  and 
commonly  recognised.  In  the  Basque  province,  for  in- 
stance, all  went,  nobles  included.  6  Once  none  but  the 
insensate  were  seen  there ;  now  people  of  position  openly 
attend,'  exclaims  an  inquisitor.1  Priests  even  went,  cele- 
brating the  white  mass  in  the  morning  and  the  black  mass 
at  night.  No  doubt  but  that  the  celebration  of  the  Sabbath 
— whatever  name  it  might  first  have  received — had  at 
one  time  a  more  innocent  guise  than  under  the  pressure  of 
persecution  it  afterwards  wore.  But  there  was  always  in 
it  a  certain  protest  in  favour  of  the  old  times,  a  protest 
both  against  Catholicism  and  against  the  twin  brother 
of  Catholicism,  the  social  system  of  feudalism.  It  .ex- 
pressed a  kind  of  communism  ;  nobles,  burghers,  peasants, 
shepherds,  were  mingled  in  the  feast  with  which  the 
evening  began  ;  contributions  were  exacted  by  force,  and 
fines  were  imposed  for  non-attendance.  Such  a  strange 
inverted  system  of  Catholicism  would  be  especially  likely 
to  arise  among  a  people  who  were  in  a  degree  alienated 
from  their  neighbours,  the  dwellers  in  some  corner  of  a 
country,  such  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  Jura,  the  Bretons, 
the  men  of  the  Basque  Provinces.  I  imagine  this  initia- 
tory feast  to  have  been  the  earliest  and  most  essential 
part  of  the  Sabbath  celebrations ;  afterwards  followed 
other  ceremonials,  copied  from  the  ritual  of  the  Church — 
that  ritual  which  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries, 
from  the  final  disappearance  of  spoken  Latin,  had  become 
unmeaning  to  all ;  and  in  darker  days  of  persecution  the 
Sabbath  ended  in  blasphemous  defiance  of  the  Head  and 
Founder  of  Christianity.2 

In  the  darkness  which  hides  from  our  eyes  the  mediaeval 
practice  of  witchcraft  the  last  remains  of  the  cult  of  the 

1  Lancre,  quoted  by  Michelet,  Sorciere. 

2  For  a  detailed  description  of  the  rites  of  the  Sabbath  see  Michelet's 
Sorciere,  ch.  x. 


BR 

CTNIVE1 


THE  CEUSADES. 

heathen  gods  disappear.  Long  before  witchcraft  had  reached 
its  culminating  point1  a  rumour  of  change  made  itself  heard. 
In  the  midst  of  the  intense  stillness  of  the  Middle  Ages  a 
faint  movement  began,  a  gentle  rustling  which  betokened 
rather  a  coming  than  an  actual  wind.  The  first  apostle  of 
change  was  Peter  the  Hermit,  who,  in  preaching  the 
deliverance  of  Jerusalem,  preached  too  the  deliverance  of 
many  from  the  ennui  which  stifled  them,  and  in  pointing 
the  way  to  the  Holy  Land  showed  men  likewise  a  way  to 
escape  from  the  monotony  of  life.  Immense  must  have 
been  the  relief  to  thousands.  A  road  was  opened  to  them 
to  the  unknown  East ;  an  impulse  was  imparted  to  them 
strong  enough  to  break  through  the  stifling  laws  of  cus- 
tom, and  to  give  play  again  to  the  nomadic  instincts  which 
can  never  be  killed  in  human  nature.  All  the  better  that 
this  new  expedition  was  blessed  by  the  Pope  and  approved 
of  Holy  Church.  In  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
men  joined  the  standard  of  Walter  the  Penniless,  careless 
many  of  them  about  the  differences  between  Saracen  and 
Christian,  but  longing  only  for  some  relief  from  the  ennui 
of  their  dreary  existence. 

It  was  this  mere  transition  from  stillness  to  movement 
which  awoke  the  world  and  heralded  the  Renaissance. 
In  the  train  of  this  one  great  motive  power  followed  other 
lesser  ones,  which  are  more  easily  distinguishable  as  the 
immediate  forerunners  of  the  Eenaissance  era.  One  of 
these  was  the  growth  of  the  burgher  spirit,  incidental 
partly  to  the  absence  of  the  seigneurs.  The  nobles  flocked 
to  the  Holy  Land ;  some  few  settled  and  many  more  died 
there.  At  home  there'  followed  an  age  of  regencies  or  of 
weak  younger  princes  sitting  in  a  brother's  seat,  such  as 
was  our  John.  To  obtain  the  means  to  emigrate  the  king 
and  the  nobleman  alike  needed  money,  and  for  the  first  time 
since  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  the  want  of  a  medium 

1  This  we  must  take  to  have  been  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century.     See  Lecky,  nationalism,  p.  47. 

L   L  2 


516  OUTLINES  OF  PKIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

of  exchange  came  to  be  strongly  felt.  Now  money  is  a  kind 
of  demon  of  change,  inherently  and  for  ever  opposed  to  a 
slow,  fixed,  conservative  life,  such  as  was  that  of  feudalism. 
Money,  like  writing,  brings  far  things  near  and  suggests 
thoughts  of  another  kind  of  life  from  that  which  at  the 
moment  we  are  leading.  It  was  easier  to  raise  the  subtle 
demon  than  to  lay  it  again.  Literature  has  up  to  this 
time  little  to  tell  us  of  the  burgher  class,  to  which  money 
was  the  very  arms  and  armour,  or  was  like  the  familiar 
who  in  the  peasant  tale  puts  into  the  hands  of  a  low- 
born swain  the  means  to  conquer  all  the  champions  of 
Christendom.  Still  less  has  it  to  tell  us  of  those  elf 
forgers  underground,  the  very  miners  and  diggers-up  of 
the  treasure,  who  were  hidden  beneath  the  surface  of 
knightly  and  literary  society,  but  who  now  set  them- 
selves to  their  old  task  of  throwing  discord  into  the 
world  in  the  shape  of  coined  gold.  The  hoards  of  Fafnir, 
the  Ehine  gold  of  the  Nibelungen,  were  now  replaced  by 
the  Hardi  d'or.1 

With  money  the  burghers  bought  their  charters  and 
the  cities  arose  to  rival  the  seigneurs.  And  presently 
another  novelty  appeared,  the  very  child  of  the  new 
currency,  of  portentous  significance  to  these  same  feudal 
knights — I  mean  the  mercenary  soldier.  With  him  came 
a  new  sort  of  military  science,  a  new  kind  of  military 
honour  and  courage,  born  of  a  new  discipline  which  is  the 
instinct  of  communalism. 

Perhaps  ib  was  during  this  time  that  the  old  peasant 
legend  of  the  f  Eeiiieke  Fuchs '  took  a  form  which  better 
expressed  the  feelings  of  the  burgher  class.  The  satire 
became  more  pointed  and  more  conspicuous,  and  Reinhart, 

1  Struck  by  Philip  le  Hardi,  son  of  St.  Louis  and  father  of  Philip  the 
Fair.  The  issue  of  this  coin  may  be  reckoned  the  beginning  of  a  gold 
currency  in  Europe  north  of  the  Alps.  St.  Louis  did  indeed  himself  mint 
gold  coins,  but  probably  very  few  only,  as  they  are  of  great  rarity  (Hoff- 
mann, Monnaies  royales  de  France,  p.  19).  The  reigns  of  Philip  the  Fair 
and  of  our  Edward  III.  are  the  eras  of  a  large  gold  currency. 


MENDICANT   OEDERS.  517 

instead  of  being  a  representative  of  the  lower  people, 
became  a  knight,  and  as  such  a  living  satire  upon  the 
knightly  class.  At  this  time  too  sprang  up  the  form  of 
literature  which  was  especially  created  for  the  burgher 
class.  That  was  the  fabliau.  What  the  *  Chansons  de 
Geste '  at  first,  and  later  on  the  romances  of  chivalry  or 
the  love  songs  of  the  troubadours,  were  for  the  highest 
class,  what  the 'original  forms  of  the  Beast  Epic  and  the 
Legend  of  the  Saints  were  for  the  lowest,  such  were  the 
fabliaux  for  the  burgher  middle  class. 

It  was  in  deference  to  the  same  spirit  of  change,  the 
love  of  movement  which  was  passing  over  Europe,  that 
Francis  and  Dominic  instituted  in  the  thirteenth  century 
their  orders  of  begging  friars.  The  rule  of  this  new  class 
of  monk  was  the  exact  converse  of  the  rule  of  Benedict  of 
Nursia,  the  organiser  and  almost  the  founder  of  western 
monasticism,  and  of  the  great  revivers  of  that  monasticism, 
Columba  and  Bernard.  In  the  ordinances  of  all  these 
strictest  measures  were  taken  to  prevent  the  monk  from 
wandering  from  his  home.  He  was  absolutely  forbidden 
to  partake  of  food  outside  the  walls  of  the  monastery ; 
and  if  a  brother  were  obliged  to  be  absent  from  it  for  a 
whole  day  he  was  enjoined  to  fast.  The  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans,  on  the  contrary,  were  to  have  no  fixed  home 
and  were  never  to  rest  for  long  in  one  place.1  One  cannot 
but  see  that  the  rise  of  the  begging  friars  was  a  direct 
outcome  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  unconsciously  one 
of  the  death  blows  to  that  very  Catholicism  which  it 
sought  to  revive.  This  is  perhaps  why  these  orders 
degenerated  sooner  than  did  any  other.  What  they  had 
become  in  the  course  of  a  century  and  a  half  from  the 
time  of  their  institution  we  may  judge  from  the  pages  of 
Chaucer. 

It  is  not  our  business  here  to  trace  the  decline  of  the 

1  This  at  least  was  the  original  institution.    It  was  not  long  observed. 


518  OUTLINES   OF  PRIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

mediaeval  spirit.  The  period  at  -which  we  have  now 
arrived  is  important  to  the  subject  in  hand  for  this  reason 
only,  that  Medievalism  did  at  this  hour  of  death  put  forth 
her  greatest  fruits.  It  was  at  this  time — that  is  to  say, 
during  the  thirteenth  century — that  the  Gothic  architecture 
attained  the  perfection  of  its  form.  And  it  was  the  end 
of  this  century  or  the  early  years  of  the  succeeding  one 
which  gave  birth  to  the  second  great  product  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  '  Divine  Comedy '  of  Dante.  Of  the  first 
of  these  and  of  its  gradual  development  something  has 
been  said.  Unlike  the  Gothic  architecture,  the  poem  of 
Dante  was  a  sudden  growth.  Nothing  foretells  it  in  the 
literature  of  the  preceding  age.  That  from  which  Dante 
drew  his  inspiration  was  the  legend  of  the  cloister,  and 
the  thoughts  concerning  the  other  world  with  which  the 
men  of  the  cloister  were  chiefly  concerned.  These  notions 
and  the  heathen  elements  in  them  we  have  partly  traced 
in  a  former  chapter.  They  were  couched  in  prose,  and  for 
the  greater  part  were  prose  of  the  dreariest  character ;  but 
their  dull  literalness  helped  Dante  to  weave  his  splendid 
tissue  of  imaginative  creation.  Just  as  in  its  grand  and 
harmonious  metre  the  '  Comedy'  is  allied  not  to  the  rude 
alliterative  Northern  lay,  nor  to  the  uncertain  cadence  of 
the  ballad,  nor  the  faint  assonance  of  the  '  Chanson  de 
Geste,'  but  to  the  measured  music  of  the  cathedral  choir 
and  the  rhyming  Latin  hymn,  so  in  matter  the  vision  has 
been  born  of  the  musings  and  dreams  of  the  cloister,  not 
of  the  experience  of  the  outer  world.  To  the  men  who 
lived  in  such  reveries  the  history  of  Europe  remained  un- 
changed. The  world  had  passed  from  the  piety  of  the 
Karling  epic  to  the  license  of  the  troubadours,  and  from 
the  simplicity  of  the  saint  legends  to  the  coarseness  of 
the  fabliaux  or  the  pungent  satire  of  the  '  Reinaert  de 
Vos.'  But  they  remarked  it  not.  The  hymns  and  the 
music  which  had  been  invented  by  Pope  Gregory  I.  were 
still  suitable  to  the  worship  of  the  thirteenth  century, 


DANTE.  519 

and  they  and  the  thoughts  which  they  uttered  were  still 
suitable  to  Dante.  The  'Divine  Comedy'  is  little  else 
than  an  expanded  Dies  irw — expanded  truly  and  purified, 
and  with  a  Dies  beatitudinis  added.  It  is  becanse  he  is 
imbued  with  the  beliefs  of  an  era  that  had  passed  that 
Dante  is  so  perfect  a  mirror  of  the  highest  thought  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

In  our  ideal  picture  of  the  poet  we. are  wont  to  fancy 
him  marching  ahead  of  his  age,  anticipating  by  his  divine 
prophetic  insight  thoughts  which  are  but  beginning  to 
stir  faintly  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  discovering  new 
truths  which  the  slow  course  of  enquiry  will  reveal  to 
future  generations.  Is  this  theory  justified  by  the  history 
of  genius  ?  What  shall  we  say  of  Shakespeare  ?  Is  there 
more  of  feudalism  and  of  old  aristocratic  chivalry  in  him 
than  of  modern  love  of  freedom  and  free  opinion  ?  Is  it 
not  true  what  Carlyle  says  of  Shakespeare,  that  in  him 
Catholicism  was  still  alive,  albeit  it  had  been  declared  by 
Act  of  Parliament  to  be  defunct  ?  What,  again,  shall  we 
say  of  Carlyle  himself,  to  whom  the  modern  theory  of 
evolution  is  only  another  among  many  instances  of  the 
whimsical  folly  of  mankind?  In  the  same  way  to  Dante 
the  new  outlook  westward  which  was  beginning  to  dawn 
upon  mariners  was  impious  merely ;  and  the  new  outlook 
which  was  dawning  upon  men's  spirits  was  not  less  impious 
and  strange.  When  he  wrote,  for  Italy  at  least,  feudalism 
was  already  a  past  thing,  and  everywhere  Catholicism  was 
dying  or  in  its  death  throes.  But  in  statecraft  Dante  had 
always  before  his  imagination  that  vision  of  the  Holy 
Eoman  Empire,  the  ultimate  source  of  all  earthly  power, 
which  was  of  the  very  essence  of  feudalism.  And  he 
alone  among  his  contemporaries  looked  into  the  other 
world  with  the  eyes  and  in  the  spirit  of  Catholicism. 

Thus  outwardly  his  life  was  a  failure.  All  things  were 
taking  a  bent  different  from  the  direction  Dante  would 
have  given  them.  But  coming  thus,  as  one  born  out  of 


520  OUTLINES  OF  PEIMITIVE  BELIEF. 

time,  to  him  it  fell  to  accomplish  a  task  which  to  no  one 
else  in  the  world  at  that*  time  would  have  been  possible. 
Many  were  the  heralds  of  morning  celebrating  the  rise  of 
new  beliefs  and  of  new  principles  of  life.  To  Dante  it  was 
given  only  to  sit  and  lament  over  a  darkening  world,  to 
assist  at  the  obsequies  of  a  dead  creed,  and  for  its  en- 
shrine ment  to  prepare  a  costly  and  splendid  tomb. 


INDEX. 


ABS 

A  BSTRACT  ideas,  origin  of,  in  ideas 

JLX  of  sensation,  11-13 ;  process  of 
development  from  ideas  of  sensa- 
tion, 13-16 

Abstract  terms,  11-13 

Achajmenidaa,  descent  of,  from  a  tree, 
63 

Achilles  and  Apollo,  points  of  likeness 
between,  192 

Adam  of  Bremen,  his  description  of  a 
holy  grove  at  Upsala,  331 

Aditi,  139,  142,  143 

Adityas,  139, 142, 143  ;  name  bestowed 
especially  upon  Mitra  and  Varurca, 
139 

Admetus,  187 ;  true  character  of,  190 

JEaea,  Odysseus'  coming  to,  311  ; 
meaning  of  the  word,  312 

JEgis,  original  nature  of,  199  ;  belongs 
of  right  to  Zeus  and  to  Athene,  202 

JEolus,  308  ;  his  island  a  kind  of 
paradise,  308 

Agalmata,  rude,  worship  of,  among 
the  Greeks,  80 

Agni,   birth   of,  from  the  wood,  98 
100 ;    he  devours  his  parents,  98 
birth  of,  in  the  clouds,  100,  101 
especially  the  friend  of  man,  101 
the  conductor  of  the  soul  to  Para- 
dise,  102,  288;   incarnate   after   a 
fashion,  103 ;  the  fosterer  of  strong 
emotion,   103 ;   hymn  to,   103 ;  his 
relations  with  Indra,  130 ;  in  the 
wood,  134 ;  in  the  heaven,  134  ;  he 
with  Indra  represents  the  most  re- 
ligious side  of  the  Vedic  creed,  134  ; 
as  a  hero,   135 ;    associated    with 
Varuwa,  144 


APO 

Ahi,  his  contests  with  Indra,  129, 151 

Alcinoiis,  321  ;  description  of  his 
palace,  321 ;  and  of  his  garden,  322 

Alvls  and  Thorr,  357 

Amenti,  the  region  of,  passed  through 
"by  the  soul,  272 

Amphictyony,  principle  of  the,  and 
its  relation  to  fetich  worship,  70 

Angrbo-Sa,  the  wife  of  Loki,  388  ;  her 
meeting  with  O'Sinn,  397 

Animal  worship,  obscurity  which  at 
present  surrounds,  71 ;  its  relation 
to  ancestor  worship,  71 

Animals,  winged,  61 

Antichrist  will  tight  with  Elias  at  the 
end  of  the  world,  according  to  the 
poem  Muspilli,  424 

Anticleia,  her  meeting  with  Odysseus 
in  Hades,  316 

Apap,  region  of,  passed  through  by 
the  soul,  272;  meaning  of  the 
name,  272  note 

Aphrodite1  of  the  race  of  water-born 
goddesses,  94,  194  ;  became  subject 
to  Asiatic  influence,  and  hence 
changed  intoKupris,  195 ;  sometimes 
represented  armed,  like  Athene,  195 

Apollo,  associated  with  Zeus  and 
Athene  in  invocation,  155,  157 
{see  also  Zeus,  Apollo,  and  Athene)  ; 
representations  of,  in  art,  161 ;  his 
contest  with  Marsyas,  96,  174;  au- 
thors of  his  worship  as  a  Hellenic  be- 
lief were  the  Dorians,  181 ;  his  birth, 
184  ;  Homeric  hymn  to,  184  sqq. ; 
his  majesty,  185 ;  his  combat  with 
the  Python,  185 ;  his  serving  Lao- 
medon  and  Admetus,  187  ;  meaning 


522 


INDEX. 


APS 

of  this  last  myth,  190  ;  the  wander- 
ing god,  187 ;  takes  the  form  of  a 
dolphin  and  leads  the  Dorians 
from  Crete  to  Crissa,  187 ;  his  rela- 
tions with  Heracles,  188  ;  his  supe- 
riority to  -Heracles,  189  ;  myth  of 
his  death,  190 ;  grandeur  of  his 
character  in  the  Iliad,  191  ;  points  of 
likeness  between  him  and  Achilles, 
192 ;  possible  rivalry  at  one  time 
between  him  and  Zeus,  193 ;  his 
character  generally  in  Homer,  194  ; 
he  and  Athene  as  the  mediators 
between  God  and  man,  210 

Apsaras,  water  nymphs,  93,  136 

Ares,  born  of  a  tree,  63  ;  the  Pelasgian 
sun  god,  179  ;  worshipped  especially 
in  Northern  Greece,  179 

Argonauts,  expedition  of,  296  note 

Arnold,  Mr.  Matthew,  his  definition 
of  religion,  5,  25-26 

Artemis,  of  the  race  of  water-born  god- 
desses, 194,  196  ;  essentially  identi- 
cal in  character  with  Athene,  196  ; 
became  a  moon  goddess,  198 

Arthur,  King,  his  voyage  to  Avalon, 
450  ;  his  legend  only  survives  as  a 
remnant,  478  sqq. 

Aryaman,  one  of  the  three  Adityas, 
139 ;  but  little  else  than  a  '  third  ' 
to  Varurca  and  Mitra,  139  and  note ; 
with  Varuwa  and  Mitra  worshipped 
morning,  noon,  and  evening,  141 ; 
mentioned  in  hymns,  142,  154 

Aryas,  the  first  known  home  of  the, 
105,  273  ;  their  early  social  insti- 
tutions, 108,  109  ;  diversities  of 
creed  among,  110 ;  their  migrations, 

^  113 

Asbru,  the  bridge  of  the  gods,  292 ; 
also  bridge  of  souls,  292 ;  the  Urdar 
fount  at  one  end  of,  293 ;  along  it 
the  gods  ride  to  this  fount,  347. 
See  also  Bifrost 

Asgard,  the  Gods'  "Ward,  midmost  in 
the  earth,  277,  347 

Ask  and  Embla  (Ash  and  Elm),  first 
parents  of  the  human  race,  64 

Astarte  came  to  be  confounded  with 
Aphrodite,  195  ;  originally,  perhaps, 
an  earth  goddess,  198  ;  became  a 
moon  goddess,  198 

Asvin,  the,  a  degraded  form  of  the 


BAL 

deities  Mitra  and  Varuna,  145 ; 
brothers  of  Ushas,  the  Dawn,  whom 
they  carry  in  their  chariot,  145; 
meaning  of  the  name,  145  note 

Ataulf,  475 

Athene,  of  the  race  of  water-born 
goddesses,  94,  194  ;  associated  with 
Zeus  and  Apollo  in  invocation,  155, 
157  (see  also  Zeus,  Apollo,  and 
Athene)  ;  representation  of,  in  art, 
161  ;  her  virgin  nature,  196  ;  as 
Pallas,  Parthenos  essentially  iden- 
tical in  character  with  Artemis, 
196  ;  from  being  the  mist  became 
the  cloud,  and  at  last  the  air,  199 ; 
her  two  births,  199  ;  Homeric  hymn 
to,  199  ;  nature  myth  which  shines 
through,  200 ;  as  Polias,  201 ;  like- 
ness to  Zeus,  201 ;  has  the  same 
power  over  atmospheric  phenomena, 
202 ;  her  epithets  of  Prornachos, 
203  ;  Polybulos,  203  ;  Polymetis, 
203  ;  Tritogeneia,  194,  203 ;  Pontia, 
203  ;  .Phalassia,  203 ;  Euploea,  203  ; 
Gorgopis,  205  ;  Agelia,  208  ;  her  aid 
to  Perseus,  204  :  perhaps  once  iden- 
tical with  the  Gorgon,  205 ;  pa- 
troness of  mariners,  206 ;  her  cha- 
racter in  the  Odyssey,  209 ;  her 
rivalry  with  Poseidon,  209 ;  she  and 
Apollo  as  the  mediators  between 
God  and  man,  210 

Attila,  472 

Aude,  490 

Augustine,  landing  of,  on  the  shores 
of  Kent  described  by  Baeda,  502 

Aurora  and  Aura  allied,  as  Ushas  to 
the  Asvin,  146 

Avalon,  the  Celtic  Earthly  Paradise, 
450  ;  Arthur's  voyage  thither,  450  ; 
Oger's  voyage  thither,  453 


BACTRIA,  probable  early  home  of 
the  Aryas,  106 ;  description  of, 
106  sqq. 

Balder,  relation  of  his  bale  fire  to 
fire  worship,  133  ;  his  bale  fires  com- 
pared with  the  Eieusinian  mysteries, 
227  ;  his  funeral  an  image  of  the 
setting  sun,  283  ;  he  himself  a  sun 
god,  370 ;  his  home,  370  ;  death  of, 
and  descent  into  Helheim,  400  sqq. j 


INDEX. 


523 


BAD 

his  bale  fires  came  to  be  confounded 
with  Midsummer  fires,  and  were 
eventually  known  under  the  name 
of  St.  John's  tires,  410  -*qq. ;  his 
likeness  to  Sigurd  and  Siegfried, 
471  sqq. ;  Balderus  in  the  history 
of  Saxo  Grammaticus,  510 

Baucis  and  Philemon  turned  into 
trees,  66 

Beast  Epic  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the, 
481  sqq. 

Beauty,  the  Sleeping,  417 

Belief,  necessity  for  a  definition  of, 
5 ;  development  of,  parallel  to  the 
development  of  abstract  ideas,  as 
displayed  in  the  growth  of  lan- 
guage, 16  sqq. ;  defined  as  the  capa- 
city for  worship,  17 ;  the  three 
early  phases  of,  29  sqq.,  53  ;  the 
anthropomorphic  phase  of,  46 ;  at 
what  stage  it  becomes  ethical,  48  ; 
passionate  or  ecstatic  expression  of, 
50  sqq. 

Benedict.     See  St.  Benedict 

Beowulf,  the  poem,  value  of  as  a 
testimony  to  the  early  beliefs  of  the 
Teuton  racea,  358  ;  relationship  of 
the  second  part  of  the  poem  to  the 
Volsunga  Saga  and  to  the  Nibelun- 
gen-Lied,  469  sqq. 

Beowulf,  the  hero,  his  arrival  in  Den- 
mark and  reception  by  Hrothgar, 
362 ;  his  fight  with  Grendel,  363 
sqq. ;  and  with  the  mother  of  Gren- 
del, 367 

Berchta,  or  Bertha,  371 

Bifrost,  a  bridge  of  souls,  293.  See 
also  Asbru 

Birds,  sacred,  59;  gift  of  prophecy 
ascribed  to,  60 

Bird£,  Paradise  of,  448 

'  Boots,'  a  character  in  popular  tales, 
464  ;  typical  of  the  German  people, 
465 

Brandan.     See  St.  Brandan 

BreiSablik,  the  home  of  Balder,  370 

Bridge  of  Souls,  287  sqq. ;  identified 
with  the  Milky  Way,  288  ;  with  the 
rainbow,  292 

Britain,  or  Brittia,  the  home  of  souls, 
Procopius'  account  of,  437 

Bruin  in  «  Reineke  Fuchs,'  482  and 
note 


CHA 

Brunhild  compelled  by  .Sigurd  to  re- 
ceive the  embraces  of  her  husband, 
416 

Brynhild,  a  Valkyria,  343 ;  pricked 
by  Odhinn  with  a  sleep  thorn,  343  ; 
her  first  meeting  with  fc^gurd,  311  ; 
Sigurd  rides  to  her  through  the 
Hume,  416  ;  her  revenge,  470.  See 
also  Sigrdnt'a 

Burgher  class,  rise  of,  gives  rise  also 
to  the  fabliaux,  516 

Burning  of  the  dead,  an  Aryan  rite, 
282  ;  effect  of  the  rite  upon  beliefs 
concerning  the  future  state,  284 


CADMUS,  birth  of,  from  a  tree,  63 
Calypso,  her  likeness  to  Circe  in 
character  and  in  the  part  she  plays 
in  the  Odyssey,  301  ;  a  Goddess  of 
Death,  301 ;  Hermes  brings  com- 
mand to  her  to  release  Odysseus, 
:;  1 9  ;  she  instructs  Odysseus  how  to 
make  a  raft  and  speeds  him  on  his 
way,  319 

'Carnoet,  the  ferry  of,'  a  Breton 
legend,  439 

Caspian  Sea,  formerly  of  greater  ex- 
tent than  now,  273 ;  the  younger 
tribes  of  the  Aryas  (i.e.  the  Yavanas) 
lived  upon  its  shore,  275  ;  it  became 
for  them  the  Sea  of  Death,  276 

Castles,  the  building  of,  500 

Cathedral.    See  Gothic  cathedral 

Catholicism,  mediaeval,  remains  of 
heathenism  in,  504  sqq. 

'  Chansons  de  Geste,'  the  contrast  be- 
tween them  and  the  Nibelungen, 
476 ;  completely  informed  by  the 
spirit  of  mediaeval  Catholicism, 
476  ;  inspired  by  the  crusades,  486  ; 
Germanic  and  not  Celtic  in  tone, 
486 ;  character  in  which  they  pour- 
tray  Charlemagne,  486,  487  sqq.  ; 
and  Eoland,  490  ;  they  formed  the 
literature  of  the  upper  classes,  491 

Charlemagne,  crowning  of,  at  St. 
Peter's,  on  Christmas  Day  of  the 
year  800,  484 ;  the  mythic,  of  the 
'  Chansons  de  Geste,'  486,  487  ;  his 
likeness  to  Odhinn,  487 

Charles  the  Fat,  his  vision  of  purga< 
tory,  428 


524 


INDEX. 


CHI 

Chimaera,  personification  of  the  storm, 
21 

Cimmerian  Land,  the,  was  a  land  of 
sunset,  273,  276  ;  description  of,  in 
the  Odyssey,  276 

Circe,  her  likeness  to  Calypso  in  cha- 
racter and  in  the  part  she  plays  in 
the  Odyssey,  301 ;  she  is  a  Goddess  of 
Death,  302  ;  etymology  of  her  name, 
302  note]  her  parentage,  311;  her 
island,  311 ;  her  reception  of  the 
comrades  of  Odysseus,  312 ;  she 
speeds  Odysseus  on  his  way  to 
Hades,  313 

Climatic  influences,  effect  of,  in  de- 
termining the  nature  of  a  creed, 
104 

'  Comedy,  Divine.'     See  Dante 

Community,  village.  See  Village 
community 

Convents,  the  building  of,  500  ;  change 
which  passed  over,  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury, 501 ;  description  of  a  convent 
founded  by  St.  Eloi,  501 

Core,  a  name  of  Athene,  196  ;  of  Per- 
sephone, 227 

Cretan  labyrinth  compared  with  the 
garden  of  Mylitta  at  Babylon,  182 

Criemhild,  Siegfried's  love  for,  416 

Cyclopes,  personifications  of  the 
storm,  21 ;  dwellers  in  the  out- 
world,  305  ;  arrival  of  Odysseus  at 
their  island,  305  ;  Polyphemus  com- 
pared to  Grendel,  307;  Odysseus' 
escape  from  Polyphemus,  307 


DANTE,  his  indebtedness  to  the  le- 
gend of  Owayne,  431  sq. ;  his 
account  of  Ulysses'  last  voyage,  442 ; 
his  '  Divine  Comedy  '  is,  next  to  the 
Gothic  cathedral,  the  greatest  pro- 
duction of  the  Middle  Ages,  518  ; 
the  sources  from  which  he  drew  his 
inspiration,  518  ;  his  want  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  new  thoughts  of  his 
age,  519 

Dawn,  first  represented  by  the  wind 
of  dawn,  140  ;  the  white  and  the 
red,  146.  See  also  Ushas 

Day,  the  mythic,  described  from  the 
Veda,  146  sqq. 

Death,  tho  imagery  of,  Chapters  V. 


EAR 

and  VIII. ;  images  of,  especially 
frequent  in  the  Norse  creed,  385 ; 
House  of,  surrounded  by  a  belt  of 
flame,  390  sqq. 

«  Death,  angel  of,'  407,  409 

Death  wake,  266 

Dekken,  Van  der,  496 

Delos,  why  chosen  for  the  birth-place 
of  Apollo,  183 

Demeter,  worship  and  mysteries  of, 
Chapter  V. ;  an  earth  goddess,  175, 
214  sqq. ;  difficulty  of  distinguish- 
ing the  personalities  of  her  and  of 
Persephone,  231  note  ;  processional 
chaunt  in  honour  of,  241 

Demophoon  nursed  by  Demeter,  225 

Didron,  his  remarks  on  the  relation- 
ship of  Christ  to  the  Father  in  the 
iconography  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
192 

Dietrich  of  Bern,  472 

Dionysus,  an  earth  god,  214  ;  rites  of, 
introduced  into  the  Eleusinia  from 
Thrace,  221 

Dioscuri,  their  relationship  to  the 
Asvin,  145,  152  ;  often  associated 
by  the  Greek  with  dead  ancestors, 
152 

'  Divine  Comedy,'  the.     See  Dante 

Dodona,  the  grove  of,  93.  See  also 
Zeus 

Dorians,  the  first  worshippers  of 
Apollo,  181 ;  their  migrations,  181, 
183 

Dornroschen,  417 

Durendal,  Roland's  sword,  512 

Dyaus,  the  sky,  41  ;  replaced  by  Zeus, 
Jupiter,  and  Zio,  46  ;  a  pre-Vedic 
god,  117  ;  has  fallen  into  neglect 
in  the  Vedas  and  been  superseded 
by  Indra,  119  ;  the  father  of  Indra, 
119  ;  compared  with  Ouranos  and 
with  Kronos,  119  note 


EARTH   goddesses   of  the   Greeks, 
175  ;  of  the  Teutons,  371 ;  images 
of  ,  dragged  from  place  to  place,  236, 
374 

Earth  gods  of  the  Greeks,  178  ;  of  the 
Teutons,  370 ;  and  goddesses,  rela- 
tionship of,  216,  370 
Earth  worship,  antiquity  and  longe- 


INDEX. 


525 


EAR 

vity  of,  214,  260;  characterises  the 
peasant  class,  214 

Eai  ,ily  Paradise,  beliefs  concerning, 
Chapter  IX. ;  a  survival  of  heathen 
belief,  434 ;  difference  of  opinion 
touching  its  locality,  435  ;  by  some 
placed  in  Ireland,  441 ;  or  in  an 
island  to  the  west  of  Ireland,  441  ; 
by  Dante  placed  on  the  summit  of 
the  Mountain  of  Purgatory,  443  ; 
effect  of  the  belief  in,  in  sending 
men  on  exploring  expeditions,  443 

Easter  fires,  377  ;  superstitions  con- 
cerning them,  378 

Eastre.     See  Ostara 

England,  or  Britain,  imagined  to  be 
the  home  of  souls,  436 

Eleusinia.     See  Mysteries 

Eleusis  originally  meant  the  place  of 
the  'coming'  of  spring,  221,  227; 
not  the  designation  of  one  spot 
only,  222 

Elpenor,  Odysseus'  meet  ing  with,  in 
Hades,  268,  315 

Embla  and  Ask  (Elm  and  Ash),  the 
first  parents  of  the  human  race,  64 

Epics.  See  'Chansons  de  Geste,'  Nibe- 
lungen,  Odyssey 

Erinys  and  Erinyes,  original  nature, 
21 ;  development  of  the  moral  ele- 
ment in  the  conception  of  them,  28 

Etzel,  472 


FAFNIR,  Sigurd's  slaying  of,  343, 
470 

Fenrir,  one  of  the  children  of  Loki, 
388 ;  his  nature,  388  ;  interchange 
of  nature  between  him  and  Jor- 
mungandr,  388  note ;  fights  with 
Odhinn  at  Pvagnarok,  422 

'  Fetich '  and  '  fetichism,'  diverse 
meanings  given  to  the  words,  31 
sqq. ;  the  only  meaning  which  can 
serve  to  distinguish  a,  special  phase 
of  belief,  36  ;  the  three  principal 
forms  of  fetich,  54  ;  fetich,  pro- 
phetic powers  of  the,  61-62  ;  the 
carved,  81 

Fetich  worship  (fetichism)  distin- 
guished from  magic,  34  ;  its  rela- 
tion to  magic,  78  ;  its  influence 


GAN 

upon  early  art,  82-86;  its  decay, 
86  sqq. ;  survivals  of  fetichism,  87 

Feudalism,  society  began  to  stiffen 
into,  after  the  age  of  Charlemagne, 
499  ;  this  is  shown  in  the  '  Chansons 
de  Geste,'  499  ;  one  of  two  pillars 
of  mediaeval  life,  502  ;  but  not 
an  entirely  new  birth,  502 ;  rather 
an  adaptation  to  its  new  conditions 
of  the  ancient  society  of  the  vil- 
lage community,  503  ;  the  process 
by  which  it  reached  its  full  de- 
velopment, 503  sq. ;  a  petrifaction 
of  life,  505 

Kiulsvith,  the  porter  of  hell,  395 

Fire  worship  among  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean races,  132  and  note.  See  also 
Agni 

Folk  tales,  the  great  vitality  of,  477  ; 
become  the  most  conspicuous  \\licu 
the  higher  parts  of  the  creed  lnv<; 
been  annihilated,  477;  the  piimi- 
tive  groundwork  of  mythology, 
480 

Folk  tales  of  the  Middle  Ages,  477 
sqq.,  492  sqq. 

Folk  tales  of  Germany,  492  sqq. 

Fontaine  de  Jouvence,  origin  of  the, 
282 

Francis  of  Assisi.     See  St.  Francis 

Franciscans.     See  Mendicant  orders 

Freyja,  associated  with  Frigg  and 
Freyr,  371  ;  corresponds  to  Per- 
sephone and  Libera,  371 ;  her  wan- 
derings in  search  of  Odhur,  373 ;  at 
the  funeral  of  Balder,  402 

Freyr,  a  god  of  summer  and  of  fruit- 

•  fulness,  370 ;  his  wooing  of  Ger$, 

222,  372  ;  at  the  funeral  of  Balder, 

402  ;  his  fight  with  Surtr  at  Kag- 

narok,  422 

Frigg  and  Freyja,  177  ;  they  corre- 
spond to  Demeter  and  Persephone, 
371 

'Frogs,  the,'  picture  of  the  under 
world  presented  in,  248 

Fursey.     Sec  St.  Fursey 


p  AGNRAD,  a  name  of  Odhinn,  337 ; 
\JT     meaning  of  the  word,  337 
Ganelon,  499 
Ganges,  became  to  the  Indians  the 


526 


INDEX. 


GAU 

representative  of  the  River  of 
Death,  281 

Gau,  the  earth,  118 

General  terms,  37 

GerS,  the  wooing  of,  222,  372 

German  heathenism,  general  uni- 
formity of,  in  whatever  country 
discovered,  325  ;  climatic  influences 
under  which  it  was  matured,  326 

Germans,  low  social  condition  of, 
when  they  are  first  known  to  his- 
tory, 327 

Geruth,  446  ;  the  same  as  Geirrod,  446 
note 

1  Geste,  Chansons  de.'  See  '  Chansons 
de  Geste ' 

Ghost,  the,  could  not  cross  Styx  until 
funeral  rites  had  been  performed, 
268 ;  examples  in  the  cases  of  El- 
penor  and  Patroclus,  268 

Giant  race  of  Greeks  and  that  of 
Northmen,  comparison  between, 
304,  307 

Gjuki  and  Gjukungs,  338,  415 

Gjallar-brii,  the  bridge  of  souls  in  the 
under  world,  402,  445 

Gjallar  horn,  the  horn  of  Heimdal,  347 
and  note  ;  blown  at  Ragnarok,  420  ; 
Roland's  horn  compared  to,  491 

Godrun  marries  Sigurd,  415  ;  her  re- 
venge for  the  murder  of  Sigurd, 
470 

Gods,  active  and  passive,  rivalry  be- 
tween, 120  sqq. 

Gold  currency,  reintroduction  of,  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  516 

Gorgon  slain  by  Perseus,  205  ;  near 
connection  with  Athene,  205,  209 

Gorm  the  Wise,  King  of  Denmark, 
279 ;  his  journey  to  farther  Biar- 
mia,  444  sqq. 

Gothic  cathedral,  the,  an  allegory  of 
the  life  and  thought  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  499  ;  the  slow  stages  by  which 
it  grew  to  its  perfect  form,  501, 
505  ;  is  the  holy  grove  turned  into 
stone,  506  ;  description  of,  507 

Goths  of  MEesia,  their  ignorance  of 
money,  474 

Gr&ci,  etymology  of  the  name,  168 

Grave  personified  as  a  devouring  ani- 
mal OA  man,  269  sqq. 

Grave-mouth    the    one    gate   to    the 


HAU 

under  world,  whether  for  going  or 
returning,  267 ;  for  this  reason 
strewn  with  sharp  stones,  267 

Graves  of  the  Stone  Age,  traces  of 
funeral  fe»st  found  in,  266 

Greek  divinities,  want  of  individuality 
in  representation  of,  158  ;  what  this 
denotes,  159 

Greek  religion,  complexity  of,  155  ; 
decay  of  nature  worship  in,  156  ; 
necessity  of  comparing  it  with  the 
Vedic  and  Norse  creeds,  156 

Grendel,  a  giant,  307 ;  his  encounter 
with  Beowulf,  360  sqq. ;  his  mother, 
366  sqq. 

Grimhild  gives  magic  potion  to  Si- 
gurd, 415 

Grimvald,  the  Lombard  king,  ghost 
of,  438 

'  Grove,'  convertible  term  with 
'  temple  '  in  Teutonic  languages, 
331,  506 

Grove,  holy,  at  Upsala,  331 

Gubernatis,  Prof,  de,  his  distinction 
between  the  mythological  and  re- 
ligious periods  of  the  Vedic  creed, 
26 

Gullinkambi,  a  mythic  cock  which 
crows  at  Ragnarok,  420  ;  perhaps 
the  same  as  Salgofnir  (393)  and 
Vidofnir  (396) 

Gullinbursti-,  Freyr's  boar,  402 

Gunther,  Siegfried's  service  to,  416 

Gunthmund,  445 

Gymir,  the  father  of  GerS,  372 


TTACKELBERG,  or  Hackelbiirend, 

11.  the  Wild  Huntsman,  another 
form  of  Odhinn,  293,  494;  hunts 
along  the  Milky  Way,  293  ;  his 
legend, 493 

Hades,  162  ;  at  first  the  unseen  place, 
265;  then  personified  and  after- 
wards once  more  a  place,  270 ; 
Odysseus'  voyage  to,  313  ;  picture  of 
Hades'  kingdom  in  the  Odyssey,  314 

Hades-Pluton,  178 

Hardi  d'or,  the  introduction  of  the, 
516  and  note 

Harke,  371 

Haukal,  Ibn,  his  description  of  Norse 
funeral  rites,  405  sqq. 


INDEX. 


527 


HEA 

Heaven  and  hell,  ancient  notions 
corresponding  to  our,  273 

Hector's  clothes  burnt  as  a  substitute 
for  his  body,  286 

Heimdal,  317  ;  his  fight  with  Loki  at 
Ragnarok,  422  ;  his  horn  compared 
to  that  of  Roland,  491 

Hel,  the  concealed  place,  265  ;  then 
personified  and  afterwards  once 
more  a  place,  270  ;  one  of  the 
children  of  Loki,  388  ;  Balder  in 
her  halls,  403 

Helgi,  the  ghost  of,  392 

Hell,  harrowing  of,  191 

Henotheistn,  44  sq.  ;  a  name  intro- 
duced by  Prof.  Max  Miiller,  44 
note',  conspicuous  in  the  Vedic 
creed,  115 

Hephaestus,  a  degraded  form  of  the 
fire  god,  133;  compared  with  V6- 
lund,  342 

Hera,  175 ;  her  character  different 
from  that  of  the  other  wives  of 
Zeus,  176  ;  suggested  etymology  of 
her  name,  176  ;  her  nature  subdued 
by  that  of  Athene,  198 

Heracles,  a  Pelasgian  sun  god,  179  ; 
worshipped  in  the  centre  and  south 
of  Greece,  179 ;  his  likeness  to 
Thorr  shows  him  \o  be  an  Aryan 
divinity,  179  note;  his  relations 
with  Apollo,  188  ;  his  death,  189  ; 
he  left  his  shade  in  Hades  as  a 
kind  of  pledge,  190 

Hermes,  an  earth  god  in  Arcadia, 
214;  his  intervention  to  release 
Odysseus  from  Circe  and  from 
Calypso,  301,  313,  318  ;  meaning  of 
these  incidents,  318 ;  a  wind  god, 
319  ;  a  god  of  the  mark  and  the 
market,  333 

Hermo'Sr,  his  ride  to  Helheim,  403 

Hestia,  132 

Holda,  371 

Homeric  hymn  to  Apollo,  184  sqq. ; 
to  Athene,  199;  to  Demeter,  224 
sqq. 

Homestead,  Teuton  gods  of  the,  369 
sqq. 

Hotherus  and  Balderus,  story  of,  as 
told  by  Saxo  Grammaticus,  510 

Hringhorni,  Balder's  ship,  401 

Hrothgar,   King  of   the   Danes,   360 


JOT 

sqq. ',   his  home   roofed  with  gold, 
475 
Hymir,  355 


INDRA  supplants  the  older  god 
Dyaus,  119;  why  he  does  this, 
120 ;  rivalry  between  him  and 
Varuwa,  122  ;  hymn  addressed  to 
him  and  Varuwa  together,  123 ; 
becomes  the  supreme  and  universal 
ruler,  126 ;  his  might,  127 ;  hymn 
to,  127  ;  his  enemies,  128 ;  his  re- 
lations with  Agni,  130;  he  with 
Agni  represents  the  most  religious 
side  of  Vedic  belief,  134  ;  his  meet- 
ing with  the  Maruts  described  in  a 
hymn,  151 

Initiation  into  the  Eleusinia,  240 

'  Ionian,'  widest  meaning  of  the  name, 
163  ;  part  played  by  the  lonians  in 
the  civilisation  of  the  Greeks,  164 
sqq. 

Ireland,  why  the  '  Island  of  Saints,' 
441 

Iron  Wood,  the,  348 

Isengrim  of  the  •*  Keineke  Fuchs,'  his 
cousinship  to  Reineke,  482 ;  com- 
pared to  Odhinn,  483 


JAVAN.     See  Yavanas,  Ionian 
Jean,  St.,  feux  de.    See  St.  John's 
fires 

Jew,  Wandering,  the>  497 
Johannisfeuer.     See  St.  John's  fires 
John's,  St.,  fires.     See  St.  John's  fires 
Jormungandr,  the  Midgard  worm,  a 
personification  of  the  earth-girding 
sea  or  river,  73 ;    his   likeness  to 
Oceanus,    73 ;    his    combats    with 
Thorr,   353,  355;   a   son   of   Loki, 
388  ;   his  last  fight  with  Thorr  at 
Ragnarok,  422 

Jotuns  (jotnar)  compared  with 
Greek  giants  and  Titans,  304,  307 ; 
always  at  enmity  with  the  ^Esir, 
336 ;  born  of  fire  and  ice,  419 ; 
their  invasion  of  Mannheim  and 
encounter  with  the  ^Esir  at 
Ragnarok,  419  sqq.  See  also  Gymir, 
Hrym,  Hymir,  Loki,  Skrymir, 
Thrymr,  tJtgarSloki 


528 


INDEX. 


JOT 

Jotunheimar,  the  land  of  vvinter,  349, 
389  ;  surrounded  by  a  girdle  of  fire, 
349,  390 ;  Thorr's  tarings  to,  349 
sqq, 

Jouvence,  Fontaine  de,  origin  of,  282 
Jupiter,  41,  46,  124.    See  also  Zeus 


TTALEWALA,  descriptions  of  magic 
J\.    in,  512 

Keleos,  Demeter's  coming  to  the  house 
of,  225 

Jfinvad,  the  bridge,  description  of, 
from  the  Zend  Avesta,  291 

Kronos,  his  fatherhood  to  Zeus,  119 
and  note;  he  represents  in  many 
ways  the  creed  of  the  peasantry, 
174  and  note ;  banished  by  the 
warlike  Zeus,  174 

Kuhn,  Adalbert,  on  Sarama,  140 


T  AOMED6N  served  by  Apollo,  187 

I  J  Ltito  comes  to  Delos,  and  there 
gives  birth  to  Apollo,  184 

Lohengrin,  460 

Loki  the  personification  of  the  f  unerarl 
fire,  386 ;  his  double  nature,  a  god 
and  a  giant,  387  ,  his  progeny,  388  ; 
he  causes  the  death  of  Balder,  401 ; 
he  brings  the  troop  of  ghosts  from 
Niflhel  in  the  ship  '  Naglf ar '  to  fight 
at  Ragnarok,  421 ;  his  combat  with 
Heimdal,  422  ;  in  the  poem  Muspilli 
his  place  is  taken  by  the  Old 
Fiend,  424 

Lotophagi,  Odysseus'  visit  to,  304 

Lycseus,  an  epithet  of  Zeus,  signifi- 
cance of,  171  note 

Lycaeon,  Mount , sometimes  confounded 
with  Zeus,  171  and  note,  172 


MAYDAY    celebrations    described, 
378  ;  May  fires  ban  the  witches, 
378 

Magic,  vitality  of  the  belief  in,  88 
Marsyas'  skin,  96  ;    Marsyas'  contest 

with  Apollo,  meaning  of,  174 
Mare  and  Meer,   etymological    con- 
nection  with  morS)  Mord,  murder, 
276 


MIT 

Mark,  original  meaning  of,  330 ;  the 
gods  of  the,  334  sqq. 

Maruts,  the  clouds,  129;  the  storm 
winds,  149;  they  gain  strength  as 
the  day  advances,  149 ;  hymn  to, 
150 ;  their  meeting  with  Indra 
celebrated  in  a  hymn,  150;  rather 
heroes  than  gods,  152;  often  con- 
founded with  the  dead  ancestors,  152 

Material  character  of  primitive 
thought  displayed  by  primitive 
language,  6  sqq. 

Medusa,  204.     See  also  Gorgon 

Mendicant  orders,  rise  of,  517 ;  he- 
ralded the  decay  of  Catholicism,  517 

Menglod,  395 ;  the  meaning  of  her 
name  shows  her  to  be  the  same  as 
Freyja,  395  note 

Metaneira,  Deraeter's  visit  to  her 
house,  225  ;  she  discovers  Demetgr 
concealing  Demophoon  in  the  fire, 
225 

Metis,  a  river  goddess,  204 

Midgard  Sea,  the,  72,  348  gq.t  389 

Migrations  of  the  Aryas,  113  ;  of  the 
Greeco-Italic  race,  163  sqq. 

Milky  Way,  the,  identified  with  the 
Bridge  of  Souls,  288 ;  various 
names  of,  288 ;  the  Wild  Huntsman 
hunts  along  it,  293,  495;  legend 
concerning,  under  the  name  of  the 
Winter  Street,  294 

Mimir  or  Mim,  his  well  of  wisdom 
visited  by  Odhinn,  336  ;  his  nature, 
336  note 

Minos,  the  tradition  of,  points  to  a 
time  when  Crete  was  the  ruling 
state  in  the  Greek  world,  181 ; 
originally  stood  for  the  first  man, 
afterwards  for  the  first  Idng  among 
the  Greeks,  182  note 

Minotaur,  the,  probably  a  sun  god 
after  an  Oriental  pattern,  182 

Mitra,  when  alone,  was  originally  the 
sun,  138 ;  afterwards  represented 
.the  sky  by  day,  139  ;  when  joined 
to  Varuwa  the  two  represent  the 
meeting  of  the  day  and  night  skies, 
i.e.  the  morning  or  evening,  139, 
140  ;  but  more  generally  the  morn- 
ing, 141 ;  hymn  to  Mitra  and  Varuwa, 
142  ;  hymn  to  Mitra  alone,  144 ;  M. 
and  V.  represent  the  white  dawn,  146 


INDEX. 


529 


MOB 

Morgan  le  Fay(Morgue  la  Fee),  ±b\sqq. 
Monotheism,  48  sq. 
Mountains,  prophetic  powers   of,  re- 
sided in  their  caves,  62,  67;   the 
worship  of,  67  ;    Zeus   worshipped 
as,  67,  171  and  note 
Miiller,  K.   0.,  on  Heracles  and  the 
Dorians,  188  ;  on  Apollo  and  Ad- 
met  us,  190 

Miiller,  Professer  Max,  his  definition 
of  religion,  5  ;  has  called  in  question 
the     supposition    of     a     primitive 
fetich  worship,  32 ;  on  Jmnotheixm, 
44  ;  on  Sarama,  140 
Muses,  relationship  of,  to  nymphs,  95 
Music  born  of  streams,  95-97;  church, 
its  potent  inlluence  in  converting 
the  hf-athen  Germans,  502  % 

Muspell's-heiin,  description  of,  419 
Muspell's  sons  at  Ragnarok,  1547,  420 
Muspilli,the  earth-consuming  1irc,415 
Muspilli,  a   Bavarian   poem   of   that 
name  describing  the  Last  D 17,    24 
Mylitta     of     Babylon,     her     garden 
likened  to  the  labyrinth  at  Cnossus, 
182;    an  earth  goddess,  195;  sen- 
suous  character  of,  195 
Myrmidons,  origin  of,  H3 
Myrrha  turned  into  a  tree,  67 
Mysteries,    Chapter    V.;    the   earliest 
which  we  gain  sight  of  are  of  the 
nature  of    religious  revivals,   218 ; 
seciesy  not  originally  an  element  in, 
219;  how  it  came  to  be  so,  2 1 9  ;  uni- 
versality of,  220;    the  Eleusinian, 
why  not  mentioned  by  Homer  and 
Hesiod,    222 ;     originally    dramas 
enacting  the  return  of  spring,  223  ; 
the  Eleusinlan  selected  as  types  of 
all,  224  ;  story  on  which  the  Eleusinia 
were  founded,  224  sqq. ;  mysteries 
earlier  than  a  knowledge  of  agri- 
culture, 229  ;  change  in  them  which 
the  knowledge  of  agriculture  intro- 
duced, 229;  place  of  the  orgy  in, 
233  ;  comparison  between  Eleusinia 
and  a  Catholic  mystery,  235  ;  the 
proceedings  in  the  Eleusinia,  237 
sqq. ;    how   the  thought   of   death 
came  to  mingle  with,  243  ;  Oriental 
influences  upon,  244  ;  changes  pro- 
duced  in,  by  the   introduction  of 
ideas  relating  to   death   and    the 


ODH 

future  state,  245  sqq. ;  effect  of 
Neoplatonism  upon,  251  ;  Rome 
had  originally  only  mysteries  of  the 
primitive  kind,  254  ;  she  adopted 
those  of  Isis  and  Serapis- Osiris,  254 ; 
sadness  which  characterised  the 
Egyptian,  257  ;  final  stage  of,  259  ; 
longevity  of,  260 

Mythologic  and  religious  periods  of 
the  Vedic  creed,  26 


NANNA,  the  wife  of  Balder,  dies 
with  grief  to  see  him  on  hia 
pyre,  401  ;  in  Saxo's  story  of  Bal- 
derus  and  Hotherus,  510 

Nature  worship,  39  sqq.  (nee  also 
Preface);  its  relation  to  henotheism, 
44 ;  and  to  polytheism,  45 ;  it 
forms  the  next  clearly-marked  stage 
of  belief  after  fetichism,  91 

Nausicaa,  Odysseus'  meeting  with,  321 

Neoplatonism,  its  effect  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  mysteries,  251 

Nerthus,  great  German  earth  goddess, 
371;  probably  not  the  same  as 
Hertha,  371  note ;  her  image  dragged 
from  place  to  place  in  a  car,  374 

Nibelungen  compared  with  the  V61- 
sunga  Saga,  416,  470*^.;  the  pro- 
bable date  at  which  the  epic  first 
arose,  467;  earliest  elements  in  the 
story,  471 

Nirrtis,  queen  of  the  under  world, 
288,  289,  371  note 

Nymphs,  relationship  of,  to  Muses,  95 


OAK,  mystical,  of  Zeus  at  Dodona, 
57,93 

Ocean  us,  parent  of  all  things  and  the 
limit  of  all  things,  68 

Odhinn  supplanted  Dyaus-Tyr,  124, 
334  ;  the  wind,  334  ;  but  also  the 
heaven,  335  ;  continually  keeps 
watch  against  the  giant  race,  336  ; 
purchases  wisdom  at  Mlmir's  well, 
336  ;  his  appearance  as  the  gentle 
wind,  337  ;  as  the  storm  wind,  338  ; 
rides  forth  with  the  Valkyriur,  339  ; 
descends  to  Helheim,  396  ;  his  last 
fight  at  Ragnarok,  422 ;  his  rivalry 


M   M 


530 


INDEX. 


ODH 

with  Thorr  in  a  later  mythology, 
483 ;  likeness  to  Isengrim  of  the 
Reineke  Fuchs,  483 ;  likeness  to 
Charlemagne  of  the  '  Chansons  de 
Geste,'  487  sqq. ;  transformed  into 
Hackelberg,  493;  into  the  Stret- 
mann,  495  ;  into  Van  der  Dekken, 
496  ;  into  the  Pied  Piper,  496 ;  into 
the  Wandering  Jew,  497;  into 
Satan,  509 

Odhur,  the  husband  of  Freyja,  left  her 
to  wander  in  distant  lands  and  never 
returned,  373  ;  really  identical  with 
Odhinn,  373  note 

Odysseus,  his  voyage  to  the  Loto- 
phagi,  304 ;  to  the  island  of  the 
Cyclopes,  304 ;  to  the  island  of 
jEolus,  308;  his  attempted  return 
home,  309 ;  voyage  to  the  Laestry- 
gones,  310 ;  to  Circe,  311 ;  to  Hades, 
313  ;  to  Calypso,  318  ;  to  the  Phsea- 
cians,  320 ;  his  return,  323 
Odyssey,  the  great  epic  of  the  Sea  of 
Death,  296 ;  a  poem  written  for 
seafarers  and  merchants,  296  ;  and 
in  praise  of  Athene,  297  ;  mingling 
of  myth  and  reality  in,  299 ;  ele- 
ments of  the  epos,  303 
Oger  the  Dane  (Holger  Danske),  his 
last  voyage,  452 ;  reaches  Avalon, 
453  ;  entertained  by  Morgue  la 
F6e,  456 ;  returns  for  awhile  to  the 
world,  457 ;  and  again  to  Avalou,  458 
Ogygia,  318 
Olrun,  342 ;  the  same  as  Alruna  or 

Aurinia,  342  noTe,  345 
O"rbo«a,  372     . 

Orgy,  the,  its  place  in  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries,  233 ;  connected  with  the 
worship  of  Dionysus,  233 
Osiris,  introduction  of  his  rites  into 
Greece  and  Rome,  254 ;  confounded 
with  Serapis,  254  note ;  the  story  of 
Osiris  and  Isis  as  told  by  Plutarch, 
256  sqq. 

Ostara  tires,  133,  377 
Other  world,  Chapter  VI.;  alterna- 
tions of  belief  and  scepticism  con- 
cerning, 262 ;  Greek  and  Hebrew 
belief  concerning,  268 ;  Egyptian 
belief  concerning,  271 ;  Icelandic 
picture  of,  277,  389  sqq.  See  also 
Hades,  Helheim,  Earthly  Paradise 


PLU 

Ouen,  St.     See  St.  Ouen 
Owayne,  his  descent  into  St.  Patrick's 
purgatory,  429  sqq. 


FN,   worship  of,   173;    a  sort  of 
earth  god,  214 

Papa  and  Rangi  of  the  Maoris,  175 
Paradise.     See  Earthly  Paradise 
Paradise  of  Birds,  448 
Paradise  Knight,  the,  459" 
Patriotic  instincts  fostered  by  fetich- 
ism,  69 

Pelasgians,  167  ggq. ;  suggested  deriva- 
tion of  the  word,  167  note ;  their 
creed  partly  supplanted  by  that  of 
lonians,  180 
Pelasgic  Zeus,  &c.     See  Zeus,  Hera, 

Demeter 

Pelasgis  a  name  of  Demeter,  231  note 
Pelopidae  descended  from  a  tree,  63 
Perchta,  371.     See  also  Bertha 
Persephone  and  Demeter,  the  heads 
and   representatives  of    chthonian 
worship,  21 7  ;  story  of  the  rape  of 
Persephone,    224 ;     she    was    not 
originally  connected  with  thoughts 
of  death,  242 ;  possibility  of  there 
being  two   Persephones,  242  note. 
See  also  Demeter 
Perseus  and  the  Gorgon,  205 
Pertaric,  King  of  the  Lombards,  438 
Phseacians,  Odysseus'  voyage  to,  321 ; 
meaning  of  their  name,  322 ;  ferry- 
men of  the  dead,  323 
Philology,  the  use  of,  in  studying  the 
history  of  belief,  3 ;  material  cha- 
racter of  primitive  thought  demon- 
strated  by,   6    sqq.  ;    comparative, 
its  testimony  to  the  existence  of 
nature  worship,  39  sqq. ;  its  method 
in  recovering  traces   of    the   past 
civilisation  of  the  Aryan  race,  40 
Phrygians  allied  to  the  Hellenes,  164 
Pied  Piper  is  the  wind,  i.e.  Odhinn  as 
the    psychopomp,    496  ;     probable 
growth  of  the  myth,  496 
Placidia,  wedding  gifts  to,  475 
Plutarch,  his  account  of  the  history 
of  Osiris  and  Isis,  256  sq.;  his  ex- 
planation of  the  myth,  258 
Pluton,  sometimes  the  son  of  Dem£- 
ter,  217  and  note.    See  also  Hades 


INDEX. 


531 


POL 

Polias,  Athene,  201 
Polieus,  Zeus,  201 
Polyphemus.     See  Cyclops 
Poseidon,  antiquity   of   his  worship, 

177 ;   the   meaning  of    his  rivalry 
'  with  Athene,  177,  297 
Prince  of  the   Powers  of  the  Air,  a 

favourite  name  for  Satan   in  the 

Middle  Ages,  509 
Prishni,  the  mother  of  the  Maruts, 

149 
Prithivi,  117 ;  united  with  Dy&us,  117; 

fell  into  neglect,  119 
Prometheus,  the  fire  drill,  99  note,  135 
Purgatory,  its  relation   to  Helheim, 

425 ;    visions     of,    426    sqq. ;     St. 

Patrick's,  429 
Pururavas  and  Urvasi,  340 
Python,  close  connection  between  her 

and  a  river,  74 ;   slain  by  Apollo, 

185 

T)AGNAR()K,  real  meaning  of  the 

JX  name,  by  false  etymology  writ- 
ten .  Ragnarokr,  346  note  ;  the 
fighting  in  Valholl  a  preparation 
for,  369  ;  description  of,  419  sqq. 

Rangi  and  Papa  of  the  Maoris,  1 75 

'  Reineke  Fuchs,'  a  remnant  of  the 
great  Beast  Epic  of  Northern 
Europe,  481 ;  the  various  forms  of 
the  story,  481  note',  a  tale  belong- 
ing to  the  lower  strata  of  society, 
482 ;  but  rather  to  Teutons  than 
Celts,  482 ;  some  relic  of  the  later 
mythology  of  Odhinn  and  Thorr 
has  mingled  with  it,  483 

Reineke  the  Fox,  481  ;  his  cousinship 
to  Isengrim,  482  ;  in  character  first 
represented  the  lower  class  of 
Teutons,  especially  the  Flemings, 
483 ;  to  some  extenta  representative 
of  Thorr,  483 ;  afterwards  became 
a  knight  and  a  satire  on  the 
knightly  class,  516 

Religion,  numerous  and  conflicting 
definitions  of,  4  ;  Mr  Herbert 
Spencer's  definition,  4,  22  sqq. ;  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold's  definition,  5,  25  ; 
Mr.  Max  Miiller's  definition,  5 

Rhea  an  earth  goddess,  176  ;  possibly 
the  same  as  Hera,  176 ;  etymology 
of  hor  name,  176 


SAT 

Rivers,  prophetic  powers  of,  62 ; 
worship  of,  68 ;  descent  from,  69 ; 
symbolised  by  serpents,  72 

River  of  Death,  278  sqq. ;  the  Ganges 
a  river  of  death,  281;  the  Indian 
mythic  river  of  death,  called  Vi- 
jaranadi  and  Vaitera/d,  281 

Roland  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
Thorr  and  of  Siegfried,  490;  his 
youth  contrasted  with  Charle- 
magne's great  age,  490 ;  his  horn 
compared  to  the  Gjallarhorn  of 
Heimdal,  491 

Romans,  mysteries  among  the,  263  sqq. 

Rudolf,  Abbot  of  St.  Tron,  his  account 
of  a  curious  heathen  revival  in  the 
twelfth  century,  376 

Rudra,  150,  154 

Russ,  a  Gothic  race  dwelling  in  the 
centre  of  Russia,  description  of  their 
funeral  rites,  405  sqq. 


SABBATH,  the  witches',  609;  a 
kind  of  mystery,  613 

Sail,  no  word  for,  common  to  the 
various  members  of  the  Indo- 
European  family,  165 

Saints,  Legends  of  the,  479  sqq. 

St.  Benedict  of  Nursia,  his  monastic 
rule,  501,  517 

St.  Brandon,  Isle  of,  441 ;  voyage 
of,  446 

St.  Dominic,  617 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  account  of  a 
mystery  inaugurated  by,  234  ;  his 
order  of  mendicant  friars,  517 

St.  Fursey,  his  vision  of  Purgatory, 
427 

St.  Jean,  feux  de.  See  St.  John's 
fires 

St.  John's  fires,  133,  377;  descrip- 
tion of,  411  sqq. 

St.  Patrick's  purgatory,  426,  429  sqq. 

Salgof  nir,  a  mythic  cock,  393.  See  also 
Gullinkambi 

tfarnbara,  the  mountains  of,  129 

Sarama,  140 

Sarameyas,  sons  of  Sarama",  the  two 
dogs  of  Yam  a,  145 :  guardians  of 
the  Bridge  of  Souls, '288  sq. 

Sarawyfi,  21 

Satan  in  the  grass,  506 ;  and  Odhinn, 
M  2 


532 


INDEX. 


SAV 

609.    See  also  Sabbath  and  Witch- 
craft 

Savitar  as  the  evening  sun,  hymn  to, 
153 

Sceaf,  460 

Scheria,  Odysseus'  voyage  to,  320; 
meaning  of  the  word,  320  note; 
description  of,  321 

Scyld,  459 

Sea  of  Death  represented  to  the 
Aryas  first  by  the  Caspian,  276 ; 
became  separated  in  thought  from 
the  River  of  Death,  280;  repre- 
sented to  the  Greeks  by  the  Medi- 
terranean, 296 ;  the  Odyssey  the 
great  epic  of,  296  ;  other  legends 
relating  to  it,  436  sqq. 

Serapis,  worship  of,  in  Rome,  254 
sqq. ;  confounded  with  Osiris,  254  n 

Serpent.     See  Jormungandr,  Python 

Serpent  king,  the,  in  Arcadia  and  in 
Germany,  76 

Serpent-worship,  distinct  in  many 
points  from  ordinary  animal 
worship,  71 ;  its  relationship  to  the 
worship  of  rivers,  72  sqq. 

Serpents  represent  the  autochthones 
of  a  land,  76 

Sheep,  Island  of,  visited  by  St.  Bran- 
dan,  448 

Sheol,  the  under  world  of  the 
Hebrews,  268 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  his  false  notion 
touching  poe  ic  creation,  20 

Siegfried,  the  deeds  which  he  per- 
forms for  Gunther,  416;  his  ad- 
ventures and  death,  471  ;  he 
combines  in  his  person  the  charac- 
ters of  Thorr  and  Balder,  471 ;  his 
likeness  to  Roland,  490 

Sigrdrlfa  espoused  the  cause  of  Agnar, 
343  ;  pricked  by  a  sleep  thorn,  343  ; 
asleep  on  the  Hindarfjoll,  343,  415. 
See  also  Brynhild 

Sigrfin  and  the  ghost  of  Helgi,  392 

Sigurd,  his  adventures,  343,  414,  470; 
points  of  likeness  between  him  and 
Freyr,  414;  between  him  and 
Balder  and  between  him  and 
Thorr,  471 

Skirnir  sent  by  Freyr  to  woo  GerS, 
372 ;  his  ride  through  the  flame, 
389,  394 


THO 

Skrymir,  the  giant,  Thorr's   meeting 

with,  350 ;  the  same  as  tJtgarSloki, 

353.     See  also  UtgarSloki 
Sleeping  Beauty,  417 
Sleipnir,  Odhinn's  horse,  339 
Smoke,  the  embodiment  of  the  soul, 

285 
Soul  confounded  with  the  breath,  265 ; 

with  smoke,  285 
Souls  imprisoned  in  trees,  67 
Spencer,  Mr.  Herbert,  his  definition 

of  religion,  4,  22  sqq. 
Stones,  worship  of,  79 
Surtr,419 ;  rides  overBifrost  toVlgrid's 

plain,  420 ;  his  fight  with  Freyr,  422 
Suryas,  the  sun  god,  137  ;  chases  the 

Dawn  (Ushas),  146.  See  also  Savitar 
Svarga.     See  Swarga 
Svastika.     See  Swastika 
Svegder  Fiolnersson,  his  attempt  to 

find  Asgard,  279 
Svipdag  and  Fiolsvith,  395 
Swan  maidens,  a  name  of  the  Val- 

kyriur,  340 

Swarga,  the  bright  world,  288  . 
Swastika,  the,  or  tire  drill,  99  and  note 
Symbolism  of  Christianity,  502 


rpANEMAHUTA,the  father  of  trees, 
JL     in  Maori  legend,  58,  175 
Teiresias,  his  meeting  with  Odvsseus 

in  Hades,  316 

Terms,  abstract,  11  sqq. ;  general,  37 
Themis,  an  earth  goddess,  175,  214 
Thokk,  a  witch,  403;  the  name  has 
been  changed  from  dckkr,  dark,  404 
and  note 

Thorkill,  the  companion  of  Gorm  the 
Wise  in  his  expedition  to  Utgarthi- 
locus,  444 

Thorr  (or  Donar),  his  fights  with  Jor- 
mungandr, 186,  355 ;  the  second  of 
the  three  gre'at  gods  of  the  mark, 
335;  his  faring  into  Jotunheim,  349 
sqq. ;  his  contest  with  Thrymr, 
355;  and  with  Alvis,  357;  si=;nifi- 
cance  of  his  journey  to  UtgarSloki 
explained,  398  ;  his  last  fight  with 
Jormungandr  at  Ragnarck,  422 ; 
points  of  likeness  between  him  and 
Siegfried,  471,  Reineke,  483,  and 
Roland,  490 


INDEX. 


533 


Three  Kings  of  Cologne,  the,  382 

Thrymr,  355.     See  Thorr 

Tree,  the  house,  56 ;  the  world,  57 

Tree  of  Life,  a  Middle  Age  legend  of 
the,  64 

Tree  gods,  55  sqq. 

Tree  worship  at  the  foundation  of  the 
Teutonic  creed,  332;  and  of  the 
Celtic,  332 

Trees,  life  under,  55  ;  prophetic  power 
of,  62 ;  descent  from,  63  sqq. ;  tribal 
or  village,  65 ;  the  patrician  and 
plebeian  at  Rome,  65 ;  men  turned 
into,  66 ;  souls  imprisoned  in,  67 ; 
carved,  81 

Trilogy  of  the  earth  divinities,  218  ; 
of  the  Teuton  gods  of  the  mark,  334 

Twashtar,  a  name  of  Agni,  133 

'  Twelve  Days,'  the,  superstitions  con- 
nected with,  381 

Tyr  (or  Zio)  etymologically  the  same 
as  Dyuus,  41;  the  third  of  the 
three  great  Teuton  gods  of  the 
mark,  334 ;  not  much  more  than  a 
pale  -shadow  of  Odhinn,  335,  422  ; 
his  fight  withGarmat  Kagnarok,  422 

TTLYSSES'  last  voyage,  Dante's  ac- 

U     count  of,  442.    See  also  Odysseus 

Ulfilas,  474 

Under  world,  Dionysus'  visit  to,  in 
the  '  Frogs,'  248  ;  the  '  unseen 
place,'  265;  the  grave  the  only 
entrance  to,  for  going  and  return- 
ing, 266  ;  Greek  and  Hebrew  belief 
concerning,  268 ;  personified  as  a 
monster,  269,  388.  See  also  other 
world 

Urdar  fount,  by  the  roots  of  Yggdra- 
sill,  57  ;  the  ^Esir  ride  thither  every 
day,  347 

Urvasi  and  Pururavas,  story  of,  340 

Ushas,  the  Dawn,  142, 145  ;  hymn  to, 
146  ;  less  worship  paid  to  her  than 
to  most  divinities,  147 

Utgarftloki,  Thorr's  journey  to,  349 ; 
is  a  personification  of  the  fire 
surrounding  the  other  world,  398  ; 
explanation  of  Thorr's  visit  to,  398 

VAITERA^I,  a  river  of  death,  281 
Valholl,  the  hall  of  the  heroes 
(Einheriar),  in  Asgard,  369 


WIT 

Valkyriur  (  '  choosers  of  the  slain '), 
the,  Odhinn's  swan  maidens,  60, 
94  ;  the  myth  of,  339  ;  relationship 
of  this  myth  to  like  stories  in  other 
mythologies,  340 ;  represented  in 
the  legend  of  Charlemagne  by  his 
daughters,  489 ;  transformation  of, 
into  witches,  509  sqq.  See  also  Bryn- 
hild  or  Siprdrifa  and  Sigrun 

Van  der  Dekken  really  Odhinn,  496 

Varuwa,  his  connection  with  Dytius, 
47 ;  the  sky,  122,  138  ;  afterwards 
the  night  sky,  123  note,  138 

Varuwa  and  Indra,  rivalry  between 
122  ;  hymn  to,  123 

Varuwa  and  Mitra,  138,  154;  hymn 
to,  142.  See  also  Mitra  and  Varuwa 

Vayu,  the  Wind,  associated  with  Agni 
and  Surya,  148 ;  hymn  to  the  three, 
148 

Vedas,  religious  character  of,  and 
consequent  absence  of  mythology 
from,  114 

Veddah  charmer,  a,  Tennent's  de- 
scription of,  50 

Vesta,  132 

Vijaranadi,  a  river  of  death,  281 

Village  community  of  the  Aryas,  108  ; 
of  the  Teutons,  328  ;  connection  of 
the  latter  with  the  feudal  system, 
503 

Vindkald  or  Svipdag  and  Fiolsvith,  395 

Vish/iu  inherits  the  thunders  of 
Indra,  125 

Volund,  the  myth  of,  342 

Vritra,  the  serpent,  the  enemy  of 
Indra,  75,  129,  151 

Vulcan,  133.    See  Hephaestus 


WALACHURIUN.     See  Valkyriur 
Walpurgisnacht  fire,  133,  378 

Walpurgistag  and  Walpurgisnacht, 
377,  380 

Wandering  Jew,  the,  380, 497 ;  rests  on 
Shrove  Tuesday  upon  a  harrow  or 
plough,  380,  498;  or  beneath  two 
oaks  grown  across,  498  note 

Wild  Huntsman.     See  Hackelberg 

Wise  women  change  themselves  into 
birds,  60 

Witches,  transformation  of  the  VaU 
kyriur  into,  609  sqq. 


534 


INDEX. 


WIT 

Witchcraft,  the  true  antithesis,  and 
yet  in  a  manner  the  counterpart, 
of  Catholicism,  509 ;  consists  not 
merely  in  the  practice  of  magic, 
but  in  a  distinct  cult  of  Satan,  511 

Wood  women  met  by  Hotherus,  510 

Wuotan.     See  Odhinn 


TAMA,  king  of  the  under  world,  288 ; 
his  two  dogs,  the  Sarameyas,  289 
Yavanas,  165.     See  also  lonians 
Yggdrasill,  the  world  tree  in  the  Ed- 
das,  57,  347;  takes  fire  at  Ragnarok, 
420 
Yggr,  a  name  of  Odhinn,  337 


F7EUS  etymologically  allied  to  Dyaus, 

LL    Jupiter,  Zio,  &c.,  41 ;   a  proper 

name,  46;  Zeus  supplants  Dyaus, 


ZIO 

47, 124 ;  his  sonship  to  Kronos,  119 
and  note  ;  especially  associated  with 
Apollo  and  Athene  in  invocations, 
165, 157 ;  these  three  have  given  its 
character  to  Greek  religion,  1 57 ; 
distinctive  type  of,  in  art,  161 ; 
Pheidias'  statue  of,  161 ;  by  what 
idea  it  was  inspired,  161 ;  the  Pe- 
lasgic  Zeus  a  god  of  storms,  171 
sqq. ;  Zeus  worshipped  in  groves, 
172 ;  worshipped  as  a  mountain, 

172  ;   his  combat  with  the  Titans, 

173  ;  his  wives,  175;  most  of  these 
are    earth    goddesses,    175  ;    Zeus 
Chthonios  a  distinct  individuality, 
178;    so    also    Zeus    Areios,    179; 
possible    former    rivalry    between 
Zeus  and  Apollo,  193 ;  came  to  re- 
present the  highest  Greek  ideal  of 
God,  212 ;  Zeus  Chthonios,  217 

Zio.    See  Tyr 


HE' 

TT'NTVR'RSTTY 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  TH^'  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASED  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE>-"  -7  "*  "^ 


,'43  (8796s) 


YB  22352 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


